Rapid globalisation risks deepening poverty, conflict: UN

KENYA: The unchecked growth of the global economy and its devastating effect on the world's finite natural resources could lead to crippling poverty and cross-border spats over scarce raw materials, the United Nations warned Thursday.

UN Environment Programme (UNEP) chief Achim Steiner said big business and policymakers needed to get green-friendly as they chart out future international trade opportunities and economic growth.

Governments and corporations should be addressing, "how, in a world driven by economic growth and opportunity, we can ensure that environmental sustainability does not become a victim of economic momentum," Steiner told a press conference in Nairobi.

Rampant globalisation and an increased demand for the natural resources, often at a damaging but invisible cost to the environment, may in fact aggravate the crippling effects of poverty rather than relieve them, UNEP said in a statement.

"The pace at which finite natural resources are being lost could mean that the engine of globalisation may stutter and eventually run out of fuel, triggering potential tensions between nations and aggravating, rather than alleviating, poverty," it said.

Steiner's remarks on globalisation's contribution to environmental damage, which in many cases leads to global warming, come on the eve of the release of an eagerly awaited scientific report on climate change.

The UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an independent body composed of the world's top climate scientists, will release its first scientific assessment of climate change since 2001 in Paris Friday.

The report, a draft of which was seen by AFP, found a 90 percent probability that man-made greenhouse gases were responsible for the increase in the Earth's surface temperature over the last half century and that extreme and violent weather will be the norm by 2100.

Environmentalists believe the findings will finally put an end to debate over whether human behaviour has contributed to climate change and pave the way forward for concrete action by governments and businesses alike to stem further environmental damage.

"This report closes the doors to those who were able to detract from the issue and puts an end to the notion of uncertainty and doubt about man's role in climate change," Steiner told AFP.

Steiner's comments come ahead of next week's four-day gathering of 95 environment ministers from around the world at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, where the environmental damages of globalisation and a reduction of mercury emissions are key issues on the table.

"There is no longer one-way traffic in respect to trade and the environment ... both sides have a tremendous amount to gain," Steiner said.

Nairobi, Friday, AFP