The U.S. Tanked a UN Report on a Future Choice to Sustainability
The U.S. had been involved in another hijacking. It’s not the seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker, but it does involve fossil fuels. The Trump administration has helped to tank a UN report meant as a roadmap for countries to live sustainably on the planet.
The UN Environment Program (UNEP) released its seventh Global Environmental Outlook in Nairobi, Kenya, last week. The report is the product of 287 multi-disciplinary scientists from 82 countries. Its title is “A Future We Choose.” Humans are at a crossroads. The choices are to invest in a stable climate, healthy nature and land, and a pollution-free planet—or continue business-as-usual.
If we chose a path of incentivizing countries to move toward circularity, clean energy, sustainable agriculture, and restore ecosystem health—and away from fossil fuels and plastics—there would be huge benefits. Those benefits would include adding trillions of dollars each year in global GDP, avoiding millions of deaths and lifting hundreds of millions of people out of hunger and poverty in the coming decades.
That was too much to bear for the United States, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia. According to the New York Times, the U.S. did not attend the conference but during final negotiations, a U.S. State Department official met with negotiators by video call. The official said the U.S. opposed the final language on climate change, the need to switch to clean energy, biodiversity, and the use of plastics. The worst part of the call, one participant told the Times, was that the American representative didn’t even have their camera on.
The BBC reports that in the end, scientists were unwilling to water down or change their findings, so the outlook has now been released without its customary “summary for policymakers”—a first since it was published in 1997—and the meat of the report meant to guide governments around energy and environmental policies.
Study: Cities in West Pay More for Water than Agricultural Districts Do
The price of water in the West does not motivate some major users to conserve, and cities are paying vastly more for the resource on average than the districts that supply farms. Those are the conclusions of a new study from UCLA and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The study shows that the price of water in the West does not accurately account for its growing scarcity, at a time when all seven states in the Colorado River Basin are struggling to come to an agreement on how to allocate shortages caused by drought and climate change.
The researchers focused on the disparities in the price of water in California, Nevada, and Arizona, which make up the Lower Basin states on the Colorado River. Based on historic allocations and complex water law, many water districts supplying agriculture pay little or nothing for wholesale water supplies, while some cities pay more than $2,500 per acre-foot.
As the authors note, if water is being given away for free or close to it, then there is no incentive to conserve it, accelerating the shortage in the Colorado River Basin. The study shows that water sold by the federal government to agricultural districts—roughly the amount consumed by more than 20 million households—costs less than $1 dollar per acre-foot. Municipal districts pay more than $1,000.
The researchers took a year to review state and federal contracts to buy water from rivers and reservoirs, and other data. It is not easy to figure the cost of only the water, as opposed to the cost of the infrastructure, like canals, that deliver it. They argue that water on its own has no consistent value, and that’s a problem because the price does not reflect its growing scarcity. The authors call for, among other things, a central database that tracks water prices and water rights, which could help officials and politicians to help make better decisions, especially as the climate becomes even more arid.
A separate paper authored by the Colorado River Research Group states that reservoirs on the Colorado River used to hold four years’ worth of water flows, but now, according to the paper, they are less than one third full. The experts suggest that the basin might never rebound from the aridification that has occurred and will continue a large part of which is caused by climate change. They also recommend that actors in the region consider creating a basin-wide entity where not only experts and political leaders can discuss issues but also citizens.
The full report from UCLA and Natural Resources Defense Council can be found here.
The World Comes Together to Protect Sharks and Rays
Governments of 185 countries have agreed to protect shark and ray species that have been declining. Now, more than 70 different kinds of the animals will be included in an international ban on commercial trade for manta and devil rays, as well as whitetip sharks, among others. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, adopted an agreement at the end of last month in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The convention was first signed in 1973 and was aimed at conserving land animals like pandas, elephants, rhinos, and great apes.
At least one third of these new protected species are threatened with extinction. Reef sharks have almost vanished from 20 percent of Earth’s coral reefs. Manta rays are hunted and traded for their meat, which can be fed to animals or consumed by humans, but they are mostly used in traditional medicines to increase immunity and to detoxify. Shark fins are considered a Chinese cooking delicacy, and their meat a source of protein, for humans and pets. The cosmetic industry has used some sharks’ livers as a source of oil for skincare and makeup.
These animals have not been protected before, unlike other species such as tuna, whales, and turtles, some of which have been safeguarded for 40 years. Implementation of the restrictions and protections, which is a major challenge, will fall to each country to impose fines, ship seizures, or even imprisonment.