by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Living in poverty or in an unhealthy environment violates our human rights. The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) wants the UN’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on 17th October to not only to acknowledge the struggle of people living in poverty, but to highlight the connection to environmental degradation.
The world has made insufficient progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Whilst extreme poverty has declined significantly, regional progress has been uneven. Economic and social progress has lifted nearly 250,000,000 people out of poverty in Asia but poverty rates in Africa lag, with the region unlikely to meet the MDG of halving extreme poverty by 2015. Without real empowerment for the poor, progress towards the MDGs will continue to be slow.
Climate change will exacerbate the situation, violating the fundamental human right to a safe, secure and sustainable environment. And the effects are falling disproportionately onto the poor and most vulnerable in developing countries.
Climate change highlights the interaction between economic development, environmental degradation and social inequity. Industrialized countries are responsible for half of the global carbon dioxide emissions but only 15 percent of the population; 20 percent of the world’s population consumes over 80 percent of the Earth's natural resources; 1 billion people suffer from hunger and yet 1.2 billion suffer from obesity; and if all countries achieved UK levels of wealth, the global population would need the natural resources of four or more planets.
This inequality causes a disproportionate level of environmental damage and unfair distribution of wealth, which is not a model of a sustainable world.
The CIWEM believes that the environment, economics and politics are inter-related through the way humans interact with their surroundings and with each other. Therefore, all key development figures, including governments, the private sector, civil society and people living in poverty, must undertake a truly collective effort that will lift living standards and alleviate human suffering.
Nick Reeves, CIWEM Executive Director, says: “Climate change is a human rights issue, which undermines the ability of developing countries to implement social reforms and damages the long term health and culture of entire societies. Clearly, more needs to be done to tackle poverty and underdevelopment. The overloaded phrase ‘sustainable development’ must recognize the interconnectedness between human beings and the environment if true environmental and social justice is to be obtained.”
In many cases living in poverty and in an unhealthy environment goes hand-in-hand, unfortunately, and not just in Third World countries – often called developing countries.
Even in our own midst in the affluent industrialized nations of the West we find thins and here most precisely where Romani-Gypsies are forced to live. Official caravan sites in Britain – and in Germany and France – more often than not are situated on old municipal refuse dumps, next to sewage works, next to cement factories, and other such unhealthy environments. No one says a thing there though, it would seem. Guess the majority of people regards that as OK as the people there are but “dirty Gyppos”.
© 2009
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