Sep 9 2009
The European Union failed to develop alternative indicators to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which would include climate change and environmental sustainability when measuring a member state’s performance, WWF said.
Initial discussions about “Beyond GDP” have started 15 years ago but no significant steps towards the implementation of measures for environmental sustainability, climate change, biodiversity societal progress and well-being have been made since then.
In WWF’s view a failure to include major factors impacting today’s world such as climate change will have negative consequences.
“Measuring performance only based on economic indicators is a mistake. If we do not include the environment and climate we will drive our planet bust,” said Tony Long, Director of WWF’s European Policy Office.
Payments for ecological services and finding new measures for environmental sustainability will be one of the discussion topics at the upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen.
“We are straining the planets capacity to provide essential resources and life support systems to the very limits. This global ecological debt has to be paid for by the richer nations, who are the primary cause.”
“This will be more than evident at the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December.”
The ongoing economic crisis is an example of a failure to look beyond GDP as a result new indicator measurements must not only record statistics but be also able to sound the alarm when we are close to limits.
In its Living Planet Report 2008, WWF stated that the current financial recession pales in comparison to the looming ecological credit crunch.
WWF suggests the use of the “Ecological Footprint” and the “Living Planet Index” for measuring environmental sustainability. They are viable solutions to compare human demand against nature’s available supply on the planet.