AGENDA: The effect of ecosystem for the rising per capita income of the natural resources.

PAKISTAN || UNEP
Most evidence for the resource curse comes from cross‐country growth regressions suffers from bias
originating from the high and ever‐evolving volatility in commodity prices. These issues are addressed by
providing new cross‐country empirical evidence for the effect of resources in income per capita. Natural
resource dependence (resource exports) has a significant negative effect on income per capita, especially in
countries with bad rule of law or bad policies, but these results weaken substantially once we allow for
endogeneity. However, the more exogenous measure of resource abundance (stock of natural capital) has a
significant negative effect on income per capita even after controlling for geography, rule of law and de facto
or de jure trade openness. Furthermore, this effect is more severe for countries that have little de jure trade
openness. These results are robust to using alternative measures of institutional quality (expropriation and
corruption instead of rule of law).
ABOUT PAKISTAN (see more in google)
Political commitment, institutional readiness – partnerships to scale-up
As a demonstration of political commitment and ownership, Pakistan integrated the SDGs into its national
development agenda in February 2016. Pakistan was first such country to do so.
This reorientation in approach was guided inter alia by lessons learnt from the implementation strategy of
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
A National SDGs Framework was launched in 2018 envisaging a national vision, plan and strategy to
optimize, prioritize and localize the full potential of SDGs in Pakistan.
In terms of institutional arrangement, task forces in the National and Provincial Parliaments have been
established to review progress and facilitate legislative support for implementation.
Seven SDGs Support Units instituted at Federal and Provincial Government levels facilitate vertical and
horizontal coordination among the stakeholders.
Notwithstanding economic and financial challenges, Pakistan will continue to work towards achieving the
SDGs through innovative, targeted and focused implementation strategies in the social, economic and
environmental fields.
A key aspect of implementation strategy is strengthening of the existing and forging new alliances, leveraging
technology and mobilizing finance. Partnership and close collaboration with a broad array of governmental,
private, civil society and media actors, supplemented by regional and international support, will continue to be
a major feature.
Ambitious plans to alleviate poverty
Commitment to poverty alleviation remains a key focus. Through key interventions and programmes, progress
has been made even if challenges persist. Over the last ten years, poverty headcount has fallen by 26 percent
and multi-dimensional poverty decreased by 16 percent points.
A national poverty alleviation program – Ehsaas (Compassion) has been launched this year to expand social
protection, safety nets and support human capital development throughout the country. This programme
complements and expands the on-going robust social protection program for poor women.
The national resolve to eliminate poverty is firm. The size of assistance for the lowest strata has been
enhanced. The National Socioeconomic Registry (NSR) is being updated to target the poorest more
effectively and ensure that no one is left behind.
Committed to eliminating hunger and improving health
Reductions in stunting and malnutrition have taken place - over the period 2013-2018 by 6 and 9 percentage
points, respectively. Recognizing the persistent challenge, greater focus and allocation of resources is being
made.
The prevalence of skilled birth attendance has improved by 17 percentage points while neonatal mortality rate
has fallen by 10 percentage points during the same period. The Lady Health Workers Programme, with its
grassroots presence, has been instrumental in achieving this improvement.
A new universal health coverage initiative – the Sehat Sahulat Program - has been launched this year to
provide health insurance coverage for those in need. Health Sector reforms are underway, entailing a
centralized integrated disease surveillance system and strong inter-provincial information sharing mechanism.
From commitment to action- environmental protection and climate change
Even as our carbon footprint is miniscule, the adverse impacts of climate change on Pakistan are enormous
and imminent. Climate adaptation has become a forced reality for Pakistan.
These factors notwithstanding, Pakistan has commenced actions to both protect the environment and
contribute towards efforts to minimize the adversaries of climate change. Both adaptation and mitigation are
reflected in our policy and implementation approach.
Pakistan’s Billion Tree plantation over 350,000 hectares was the first Bonn Challenge pledge to hit and
surpass its commitment, through national resources. This project has now been up-scaled to 10 Billion Tree
Tsunami – a five-year country-wide tree plantation drive to restore depleted forests and mitigate climate
change.
Moreover, programmes such as Clean and Green Pakistan as well as Recharge Pakistan have been launched.
These Nature Based Solutions for Ecosystem Restoration are leading examples of climate action among
developing countries, with co-benefits to improve bio-diversity and livelihood generation.
Monitoring and evaluation
Periodic monitoring and evaluation of various strands of the SDGs framework remains an important priority.
Baselines and targets for all SDG indicators have been determined since 2018. National data collection tools
have been modified to improve data availability with a focus on equity and sustainability aspects of SDGs.
Transparency would be a major hallmark of the monitoring and evaluation architecture- through the
establishment of SDGs Dashboard.  
Documents & Reports
Partnerships & Commitments
The below is a listing of all partnership initiatives and voluntary commitments where Pakistan is listed as a
partner or lead entity in the Partnerships for SDGs online platform.
Capacity development of SAS member countries for the preparaion of specific policies to implement goal 14
South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme (SACEP) is an inter-governmental Organization,
established in 1982 by Governments of the eight South Asian countries to promote and support protection,
management and enhancement of the environment in the region. Countries, namely; Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have ratified the articles of Association of SACEP. It
is also registered with the Secretariat of the United Nations as Multilateral Organization in accordance with
under the Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations. SACEP has its hea...[more]
PARTNERS
South Asia Cooperative Environment Programme - SACEP (IGO), Ministry of environment, Ministry of
Shipping, Coast Guard, Navy, Disaster Management Ministry, Ministry of Fisheries of each member
countries.
Designation of the First Ever Marine Protected Area in Pakistan
The Conference of Parties to Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) agreed in 2004 that marine and
coastal protected areas are an essential tool for the conservation and sustainable use of marine and coastal
biodiversity (article 8 of the convention). The target 11 of Aichi Biodiversity Targets agreed by all Parties to
the CBD specify that each Party has to declare at least 10% of its coastal and marine areas as Marine
Protected Area (MPA), especially the areas of biodiversity significance and ecosystem services. Pakistan is a
Party to CBD and shown commitment to implementation of SDGs. ...[more]
PARTNERS
1. Forest & Wildlife Department, Government of Balochistan 2. Fisheries Department, Government of
Balochistan 3. Fisheries Department, Government of Sindh 4. Ministry of Defence, Government of Pakistan
5. Pakistan Navy 6. National Institute of Oceanography 7. International Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN) / Mangroves for the Future Programme (MFF) 8. Indus Earth Trust 9. WWF Pakist...[more]
IHO Hydrography Capacity Building Programme for Coastal States
The IHO capacity building programme seeks to assess and advise on how countries can best meet their
international obligations and serve their own best interests by providing appropriate hydrographic and nautical
charting services. Such services directly support safety of navigation, safety of life at sea, efficient sea
transportation and the wider use of the seas and oceans in a sustainable way, including the protection of the
marine environment, coastal zone management, fishing, marine resource exploration and exploitation,
maritime boundary delimitation, maritime defence and security, and o...[more]
PARTNERS
International Hydrographic Organization (IGO); 87 IHO Member States (Governments); International
Maritime Organization (UN); World Meteorological Organization (UN); International Association of Marine
Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (NGO)
Sustaining resilience - development in crisis
The objective of the side event is showcase Pakistan's unique case in sustaining its development in the face of
uninvited natural calamities, conflict and engagement and superimposed self inflicted challenges.
PARTNERS
(A) Government of Pakistan: (i) Ministry of Climate Change, (ii) Planning & Development Division, (iii)
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, (iv) Ministry of Science & Technology, (v) National Disaster Management
Authority (B) Provincial Governments (C) Donors: UNDP (D) NGOs: (i) IUCN, (ii) LEAD Pakistan (E)
Academia (F) Media (G) Youth
Technology for Sustainable Development
To promote technology-led growth in Pakistan, a comprehensive R&D promotion program was devised and
implemented. It achieved two objectives:1) Promoted solution-oriented research culture across Pakistan by
involving 300+ universities, industries, social and governmental organizations2) Developed a locally fit
technology transfer mechanism and number of solutions were transferred from universes to industry creating
new business, employment and other positive effects
PARTNERS
Institute of Research Promotion (IRP) Pakistan Scientific and Technological Information Centre (PASTIC)
Pakistan Council for Science and Technology (PCST) Ministry of Science and Technology of Pakistan
Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industries University of Management and Technology South Asia Triple
Helix Association SRC (Pvt.) LTD

Strengthening of national legislation and capacity building of stakeholders for sound chemicals and hazardous
waste management in Pakistan
Project Story
Pakistan pursues transformative chemicals and waste management project
Project Summary
At present, there is no legislative or policy documentation for overall management of chemicals and
hazardous waste developed nor an inventory of chemicals present in Pakistan. The Special Programme
therefore, provides an opportunity for the Ministry of Climate Change to strengthen its institutional capacity
and to develop proper legislations and a national policy for chemicals and hazardous waste management that
will facilitate the adoption and implementation of the relevant chemicals related Conventions to which
Pakistan is Party.
Project Objectives
The project will undertake the following measures:
Develop the national chemicals and hazardous waste management policy and legislations (including
standards, regulation, labeling, licensing, penalties, ban for transport, marketing, processing, production)
Sensitize the Federal Board of Revenues (FBR) to update their HS coding and GHS for chemicals, linking to
the SAICM 2020 goal;
Develop proposal for a national specialized directorate on chemicals and hazardous waste management in
Pakistan;
Develop specific guidelines for the integration of chemicals and hazardous waste management issues in
national development budgets, policies, plans and other broad level decision making processes.
Project Details
Party: Basel, Rotterdam, Stockholm
Country Classification: Developing country
Special Programme Trust Fund: USD 243,000
Cofinancing Total: USD 125,000
Project duration: 36 months
GDP per capita is gross domestic product divided by midyear population. GDP is the sum of gross value
added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included
in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or
for depletion and degradation of natural resources. Data are in current U.S. dollars.
Pakistan gdp per capita for 2020 was $1,194, a 7.08% decline from 2019.
Pakistan gdp per capita for 2019 was $1,285, a 13.33% decline from 2018.
Pakistan gdp per capita for 2018 was $1,482, a 1.18% increase from 2017.
Pakistan gdp per capita for 2017 was $1,465, a 7.05% increase from 2016.
Consumption around the Globe, a look at per capita consumption, waste production, calories, and energy.
It takes the planet 1.5 years to restore what humanity burns through in a year.
Humanity is outstripping the Earth’s resources by 50 percent — essentially using the resources of one and a
half Earths every year.
How are we at being stewards of the Earth’s environment?
Ecological footprint:
126 billion acres: amount of biologically productive land on earth
97 billion acres: amount of earth covered by low bio-productive oceans, deserts, ice caps, and human
settlement
6.4 billion: human population
Dec. 29, 1970: the first time that human consumption outstripped the planet’s capability to produce. Since
then the date has been creeping forward each year
How we live: The energy we use
Top energy users (by units of energy: MTOE):
China, U.S. India, Russia, Japan
FACT: Americans constitute 5% of the world’s population but consume 24% of the world’s energy.
On average, one American consumes as much energy as
2 Japanese,
6 Mexicans,
13 Chinese,
31 Indians,
128 Bangladeshis,
307 Tanzanians
370 Ethiopians
Human waste of resources
In order from most to least, the top 10 greediest resource users per capita are:
1. Qatar
2. Kuwait
3. United Arab Emirates
4. Denmark
5. United States
6. Belgium
7. Australia
8. Canada
9. The Netherlands
10. Ireland
Qatar: The worst offenders: the typical resident requires the resources of 6.5X what the earth can produce.
United States: Each residents takes 4X the earth’s resources to support the global population.
UK: Consumes and produces waste at a rate 3.5 X greater than it can sustain.
China’s total ecological footprint is smaller, per capita, than in Europe or North America but its footprint is
the heaviest in the world in raw size, because of its huge population.
Trash Champions of the World
Ireland: 1,675 pounds of garbage on average per person a year
United States: 1,630 pounds per person; the average American generates 52 tons of garbage by age 75.
Iceland: 1,610 pounds
Australia: 1,540 pounds
Denmark: 1,475 pounds
What we eat, and how much:
Dietary energy consumption per person around the world. The dietary energy consumption per person is the
amount of food, in kcal per day, for each individual in the total population.
World: 2780 kcal/person/day
Developed countries: 3420 kcal/person/day
Developing World: 2630 kcal/person/day
Sub-Saharan Africa: 2240 kcal/person/day
Central Africa: 1820 kcal/person/day
Kilocalorie: A unit of measurement of dietary energy. One kcal equals 1,000 calories
Calories consumed per capita: Top countries
Austria, 3800 calories a day
U.S. 3,770 calories a day
Greece, averaging 3710 calories.
Belgium 3690 calories.
Americans as a total population eat a total of 815 billion calories of food each day: roughly 200 billion more
than needed – enough to feed 80 million people.
· Americans throw out 200,000 tons of edible food daily.
Americans have the largest disposable incomes in the world, but that doesn’t mean they’re dropping the most
cash on the combined total of consumed food, alcohol and tobacco
Switzerland — $8,024 per person
Norway — $7,624 per person
Australia — $7277 per person
Japan — $6,556 per person
Sweden — $5,666 per person
New Zealand — $5,656 per person
Finland — $5,351 per person
Austria — $5,239 per person
Spain — $5,160 per person
Hong Kong — $5,128 per person
19. U.S. $4,431 per person
What we drink:
Water
159 gallons: The average individual daily consumption of water, while more than half the world’s population
lives on 25 gallons.
Alcohol
5 drunkest countries in the world
Moldova, 4.81 gallons of liquor per person on average a year
Czech Republic: 4.35 gallons
Hungary: 4.30 gallons
Russia: 4.16 gallons, or 1,250 pints of beer, or 90 bottles of vodka
Ukraine: 4.12 gallons
Other heavy drinking countries include:
16. France: 3.61 gallons, or 500 glasses of wine
17. UK: 3.53 gallons, or 1,100 pints of beer
Americans, however, don’t drink as much liquor as people from other countries:

This synopsis highlights key findings from the following reports of the International Resource Panel:
A) Priority products and materials: assessing the environmental impacts of consumption and production;
C) Metal Stocks in Society;
D) Recycling Rates of Metals; and
E) Assessing biofuels: towards sustainable production and use of resources.
Over the next two years, the IRP will deepen its assessments of consumption and production, decoupling,
metals and biomass. It will deliver further reports on water, soil and land use and environmental impacts of
trade.
The knowledge base that the IRP provides supports policy makers and business leaders as they embark on the
journey of decoupling economic activity from resource use and emissions to enable the global economy to
operate within the limits of the Earth’s resources, climate and ecosystems, while providing equal opportunity
and wellbeing to a projected nine billion people on this planet
What are the most critical factors causing ecosystem changes?
4.1 What is a "driver" and how does it affect ecosystems?
4.2 What are the indirect drivers and how are they changing?
4.3 What are the direct drivers of changes in ecosystem services?
4.1 What is a "driver" and how does it affect ecosystems?
Natural or human-induced factors that directly or indirectly cause a change in an ecosystem are referred to
as drivers.
A direct driver, such as habitat change, explicitly influences ecosystem processes.
An indirect driver, such as human population change, operates more diffusely, by altering one or more direct
drivers.
Drivers affecting ecosystem services and human well-being range from local to global and from immediate to
long-term, which makes both their assessment and management complex. Climate change may operate on a
global or large regional scale; political change may operate at the scale of a nation or a municipal district.
Socio-cultural change typically occurs slowly, on a time scale of decades, while economic changes tend to
occur more rapidly. As a result of this spatial and temporal dependence of drivers, the forces that appear to be
most significant at a particular location and time may not be the most significant over larger, or smaller,
regions or time scales. 

.2 What are the indirect drivers and how are they changing?
4.2.1 Driving forces are almost always multiple and interactive, so that a one-to-one linkage between
particular driving forces and particular changes in ecosystems rarely exists. Five major indirect drivers that
influence ecosystems and ecosystem services are:
Population change: This includes population growth and migration. World population has doubled in the past
forty years, reaching 6 billion in 2000, with most of the growth taking place in developing countries.
However, at present some developing countries have very low rates of population growth, whereas some high
income countries have high rates because of immigration.
Change in Economic activity: Global economic activity has increased nearly seven-fold in the last 50 years.
As per capita income grows, demand for many ecosystem services increases and the structure of consumption
also changes. The share of income devoted to food, for example, decreases in favor of industrial goods and
services.
Socio-Political factors: These factors include decision-making processes and the extent of public participation
in them. The trend toward democratic institutions over the past 50 years has helped empower
local communities. There has also been an increase in multilateral environmental agreements.
Cultural and Religious factors: In this context, culture can be defined as the values, beliefs, and norms that a
group of people share. It conditions individuals’ perceptions of the world, and suggests courses of action
which can have important impacts on other drivers such as consumption behavior.
Science and Technology: The 20th century saw tremendous advances in the understanding of how the world
works and in the technical applications of that knowledge. Much of the increase in agricultural output over the
past 40 years has come from an increase in yields per hectare rather than an expansion of area. At the same
time, technological advances can also lead to degradation of ecosystem services. Advances in fishing
technologies, for example, have contributed significantly to the depletion of marine fish stocks.
 Economic growth and consumption of ecosystem services are no longer as closely linked as they were in the
past. Generally, the use of ecosystem services has grown much less over the past five decades than GDP. This
reflects a change in economic structures but also an increase in the efficient use of services and in the
availability of substitutes. However, the consumption of energy and materials continues to grow in absolute
terms, since the growth in demand is faster than the increase in efficiency.
Trade of ecosystem services magnifies the effect of governance, regulations, and management practices, both
good and bad. Increased trade can accelerate degradation of ecosystem services in exporting countries if their
policy, regulatory, and management systems are inadequate. International trade is an important source of
economic gains, as it enables comparative advantages to be exploited and accelerates the diffusion of more
efficient technologies and practices.
Population and economic growth in urban centers has been increasing pressures on ecosystems. However,
dense urban settlement is considered to be a lesser burden on the environment than urban and suburban
sprawl. Moreover, pressures on some ecosystems have been significantly lowered by the movement of people
to urban areas, leading to the reforestation of some parts of industrial countries.
2.2 Economic growth and consumption of ecosystem services are no longer as closely linked as they were in
the past. Generally, the use of ecosystem services has grown much less over the past five decades than GDP.
This reflects a change in economic structures but also an increase in the efficient use of services and in the
availability of substitutes. However, the consumption of energy and materials continues to grow in absolute
terms, since the growth in demand is faster than the increase in efficiency.
Trade of ecosystem services magnifies the effect of governance, regulations, and management practices, both
good and bad. Increased trade can accelerate degradation of ecosystem services in exporting countries if their
policy, regulatory, and management systems are inadequate. International trade is an important source of
economic gains, as it enables comparative advantages to be exploited and accelerates the diffusion of more
efficient technologies and practices.
Population and economic growth in urban centers has been increasing pressures on ecosystems. However,
dense urban settlement is considered to be a lesser burden on the environment than urban and suburban
sprawl. Moreover, pressures on some ecosystems have been significantly lowered by the movement of people
to urban areas, leading to the reforestation of some parts of industrial countries. 
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Advantages Of Eco-Friendly Products:

As of now, some people do not see the harm we do to our planet, but life is changing bit by bit. There is
global warming because of the chemicals intoxicating the Earth. Fortunately, there are still people who care
enough to fix things and make them better. People and organizations are promoting eco-friendly products to
try and contribute to saving our one world.
Saves Energy
Eco-friendly products such as solar panels generate energy from the sun. They serve as an alternative to fossil
fuels in producing electricity. They are non-renewable which means they do not consume materials like coal,
gas, or oil.
Low Maintenance
Eco-friendly buildings are low maintenance because of reduced operation.  For instance, an eco-friendly
facility promotes natural lighting by using huge windows. It results in the conservation of energy along with
the decrease in artificial lighting usage.
Costs Less
Green buildings allow for conserving water and energy. Construction may be more expensive, but in the long
run, it is a way of investing for a reliable and decreased operation and maintenance costs.
Improves Environment
Eco-friendly products improve the indoor environment. Nowadays, it is becoming an architectural trend to go
for designs which allow for natural lighting, ventilation, and air quality. These factors contribute to the bright
and cozy ambiance.
Saves Water
Green building promotes water conservation and ascertains that the future generations would still live with
abundant and clean waters. It also permits alternative water sources like rainwater and encourages water
recycling.
Improves Health
Eco-friendly products and green buildings are safe to the health as the materials used are free of harmful
chemicals and components. People are at peace knowing they don’t expose themselves to dangerous elements
caused by pollution. Eco-friendly products and green buildings do not use plastic by-products that release
toxic materials.
Improves Mental Health
Green buildings provide a pleasant environment which is beneficial to both physical and mental health. They
diminish stress and enhance the quality of life. By installing huge windows, we invite healthy and fresh air
inside, and the natural lighting provides clear and bright ambiance.
Saves Material
Eco-friendly products and green buildings ensure efficiency by using non-harmful materials without
sacrificing quality. They also regard processes that produce little waste to avoid pollution. Experts in eco-
friendly and green buildings use long-lasting and recyclable materials.
Saves Environment
Eco-friendly products and green buildings contribute to saving the environment by not using materials that are
harmful. Their production and construction are also by the aim of preventing pollution. They avoid the use of
fossil energy. They also help in diminishing the levels of carbon oxide to the atmosphere, hence prevention of
climate change.
People should be mindful of using our natural resources. As much as we have the right to harness all the
provisions of Mother Nature, we also have the responsibility to protect our home. We need to find and
implement ways to meet our needs without endangering the environment. With the use of eco-friendly
buildings, we send a message that people care. Yes, innovation is a way to take advantage of life as we only
have one. However, we also have one world. The least we could do is to play our part in protecting it.
How is life in the sea affected by climate change?
Climate change poses a serious threat to life in our seas, including coral reefs and fisheries, with impacts on
marine ecosystems, economies and societies, especially those most dependent upon natural resources. The
risk posed by climate change can be reduced by limiting global warming to no more than 1.5°C.
Life in most of the global ocean, from pole to pole and from sea surface to the abyssal depths, is already
experiencing higher temperatures due to human-driven climate change. In many places, that increase may be
barely measurable. In others, particularly in near-surface waters, warming has already had dramatic impacts
on marine animals, plants and microbes. Due to closely linked changes in seawater chemistry, less oxygen
remains available (in a process called ocean deoxygenation). Seawater contains more dissolved carbon
dioxide, causing ocean acidification. Non-climatic effects of human activities are also ubiquitous, including
over-fishing and pollution. Whilst these stressors and their combined effects are likely to be harmful to almost
all marine organisms, food-webs and ecosystems, some are at greater risk (FAQ5.1, Figure 1). The
consequences for human society can be serious unless sufficient action is taken to constrain future climate
change.
Warm water coral reefs host a wide variety of marine life and are very important for tropical fisheries and
other marine and human systems. They are particularly vulnerable, since they can suffer high mortalities when
water temperatures persist above a threshold of between 1°C–2°C above the normal range. Such conditions
occurred in many tropical seas between 2015 and 2017 and resulted in extensive coral bleaching, when the
coral animal hosts ejected the algal partners upon which they depend. After mass coral mortalities due to
bleaching, reef recovery typically takes at least 10–15 years. Other impacts of climate change include SLR,
acidification and reef erosion. Whilst some coral species are more resilient than others, and impacts vary
between regions, further reef degradation due to future climate change now seems inevitable, with serious
consequences for other marine and coastal ecosystems, like loss of coastal protection for many islands and
low-lying areas and loss of the high biodiversity these reefs host. Coral habitats can also occur in deeper
waters and cooler seas, and more research is needed to understand impacts in these reefs. Although these cold
water corals are not at risk from bleaching, due to their cooler environment, they may weaken or dissolve
under ocean acidification, and other ocean changes. 
Mobile species, such as fish, may respond to climate change by moving to more favorable regions, with
populations shifting poleward or to deeper water, to find their preferred range of water temperatures or
oxygen levels. As a result, projections of total future fishery yields under different climate change scenarios
only show a moderate decrease of around 4% (~3.4 million tonnes) per degree Celsius warming. However,
there are dramatic regional variations. With high levels of climate change, fisheries in tropical regions could
lose up to half of their current catch levels by the end of this century. Polar catch levels may increase slightly,
although the extent of such gains is uncertain, because fish populations that are currently depleted by
overfishing and subject to other stressors may not be capable of migrating to polar regions, as assumed in
models.
In polar seas, species adapted to life on or under sea ice are directly threatened by habitat loss due to climate
change. The Arctic and Southern Oceans are home to a rich diversity of life, from tiny plankton to fish, krill
and seafloor invertebrates to whales, seals, polar bears or penguins. Their complex interactions may be altered
if new warmer-water species extend their ranges as sea temperatures rise. The effects of acidification on
shelled organisms, as well as increased human activities (e.g., shipping) in ice-free waters, can amplify these
disruptions. 
Whilst some climate change impacts (like possible increased catch levels in polar regions) may benefit
humans, most will be disruptive for ecosystems, economies and societies, especially those that are highly
dependent upon natural resources. However, the impacts of climate change can be much reduced if the world
as a whole, through inter-governmental interventions, manages to limit global warming to no more than
1.5°C. 
We are draining planet earth...
Every year we extract almost 90 billion tons of biomass, fossil energy, metal and minerals from the earth -
more than 11 tons for every single person on the planet. And for people in the western world this number is
much higher.
In the 47 years between 1970 and 2015, human consumption of Earth's natural resources more than tripled.
Our use of natural resources is expected to continue its growth and more than double from 2015 to 2050.
Hungry consumer societies
On average, everyone one the planet uses more than 11 tons of natural resources a year. But there are huge
differences between how much we consume. People in high-income countries consume 10 times more per
person than people from low-income countries. In 2017, North America had a “material footprint” of 30 tons
of natural resources per capita and Europe one of 20.6 tons per capita. Poor countries have material footprints
ten times smaller of 2-3 tons.
The material footprint
The “material footprint” is an indicator of the amount of raw materials used to satisfy our consumption. As
you read this we are draining the Earth for fish & seafood, metal, wood, minerals, energy and so on. The
amount of resources extracted from Earth is increasing daily and depletion of Earth’s natural resources is an
increasing problem.
It’s the stuff we buy So what do we use all this material for? Most of it is used for all the stuff we buy. In
industrialized countries, two thirds of the material footprint is used for private consumption - food, housing,
cars, clothing, transport and so on.
A demanding global population of consumers
The growing world population - and especially the growing population of consumers - is the main driver of
the increased demand for natural resources. So far, innovation and technological developments have not been
able to break this link. 
Affluence and environmental impact
Affluence relates to the average consumption of each person in the population. A common proxy for
measuring consumption is through GDP per capita. While GDP per capita measures production, it is often
assumed that consumption increases when production increases. GDP per capita has been growing steadily
over the last few centuries and according to the formula I = PAT, called the impact equation, is driving up
human impacts on the environment. The equation I = PAT was proposed and developed by Ehrlich, Holdren
and Commoner in the early 1970s (Ehrlich and Holdren, 1971; Commoner, 1972). It recognises that the
impact of a human population on the environment can be thought of as the product of the population’s size
(P), its affluence (A), and the environmental damage inflicted by the technologies used to supply each unit of
consumption (T). Sometimes, because of the difficulty in estimating A and T, per capita energy use is
employed as a surrogate for their product. Some equate T with impact per unit of economic activity (Dietz and
Rosa, 1994), and for others T is a rather fuzzy category covering all sources of variation apart from population
and affluence (Fischer-Kowalski and Amann, 2001).
Alternatives to I = PAT
While the I = PAT equation quickly became established as the norm and has been used and cited by many
organisations and individual people ever since, recently, various alternative formulations of the equation have
been proposed.
All socio-economic systems for which the I = PAT question may be posed are embedded not only in natural
environments but also in networks of social systems with which they interact. The very nature of this
interaction seems to be of crucial importance for their environmental (and of course also their economic)
performance, and this is even more so in the face of globalisation.

5 Factors that Affect the Economic Growth of a Country

The term economic growth is associated with economic progress and advancement.
Economic growth can be defined as an increase in the capacity of an economy to produce goods and services
within a specific period of time.
In economics, economic growth refers to a long-term expansion in the productive potential of the economy to
satisfy the wants of individuals in the society. Sustained economic growth of a country’ has a positive impact
on the national income and level of employment, which further results in higher living standards.
Apart from this, it plays a vital role in stimulating government finances by enhancing tax revenues. This
enables the government to earn extra income for the further development of an economy. The economic
growth of a country can be measured by comparing the level of Gross National Product (GNP) of a year with
the GNP of the previous year. The economic growth of a country is possible if strengths and weaknesses of
the economy are properly analyzed.
Economic analysis provides an insight into the essentials of an economy. It is a systematic process for
determining the optimum use of scarce resources and selecting the best alternative to achieve the economic
goal. Moreover, economic analysis helps in assessing the causes of different economic problems, such as
inflation, depression, and economic instability. It is performed by taking into consideration various economic
variables, such as demand, supply, prices, production cost, wages, labor, and capital.
Meaning of Economic Growth:
Economic growth can be defined as a positive change in the level of goods and services produced by a
country over a certain period of time. An important characteristic of economic growth is that it is never
uniform or same in all sectors of an economy For example, in a particular year, the telecommunication sector
of a country has marked a significant contribution in economic growth whereas the mining sector has not
performed well as far as the economic growth of the country- is concerned.
Economic growth is directly related to percentage increase in GNP of a country. In real sense, economic
growth is related to increase in per capita national output or net national product of a country that remain
constant or sustained for many years.
Economic growth can be achieved when the rate of increase in total output is greater than the rate of increase
in population of a country. For example, in 2005-2006, the rate of increase in India’s GNP was 9.1%, while its
population growth rate was 1.7%.
In such a case, per capita increase in GNP would be 7.4% (=9.1-1.7). On the other hand, if the rate of increase
in GNP and population is same then the actual growth of GNP would be zero, which implies that there is a
decrease in per capita income.
As a result, there would be no economic growth. Therefore, in such a case, standard of living of people would
not improve even when there is an increase in the total output of a country. However, such a growth is better
than the stagnation of an economy.
The economic growth of a country may get hampered due to a number of factors, such as trade deficit and
alterations in expenditures by governmental bodies. Generally, the economic growth of a country is adversely
affected when there is a sharp rise in the prices of goods and services
-> Following are some of the important factors that affect the economic growth of a country:
(a) Human Resource:
Refers to one of the most important determinant of economic growth of a country. The quality and quantity of
available human resource can directly affect the growth of an economy.
The quality of human resource is dependent on its skills, creative abilities, training, and education. If the
human resource of a country is well skilled and trained then the output would also be of high quality.
On the other hand, a shortage of skilled labor hampers the growth of an economy, whereas surplus of labor is
of lesser significance to economic growth. Therefore, the human resources of a country should be adequate in
number with required skills and abilities, so that economic growth can be achieved.
(b) Natural Resources:
Affect the economic growth of a country to a large extent. Natural resources involve resources that are
produced by nature either on the land or beneath the land. The resources on land include plants, water
resources and landscape.
The resources beneath the land or underground resources include oil, natural gas, metals, non-metals, and
minerals. The natural resources of a country depend on the climatic and environmental conditions. Countries
having plenty of natural resources enjoy good growth than countries with small amount of natural resources.
The efficient utilization or exploitation of natural resources depends on the skills and abilities of human
resource, technology used and availability of funds. A country having skilled and educated workforce with
rich natural resources takes the economy on the growth path.
The best examples of such economies are developed countries, such as United States, United Kingdom,
Germany, and France. However, there are countries that have few natural resources, but high per capita
income, such as Saudi Arabia, therefore, their economic growth is very high. Similarly, Japan has a small
geographical area and few natural resources, but achieves high growth rate due to its efficient human resource
and advanced technology.
(c) Capital Formation:
Involves land, building, machinery, power, transportation, and medium of communication. Producing and
acquiring all these manmade products is termed as capital formation. Capital formation increases the
availability of capital per worker, which further increases capital/labor ratio. Consequently, the productivity of
labor increases, which ultimately results in the increase in output and growth of the economy.
(d) Technological Development:
Refers to one of the important factors that affect the growth of an economy. Technology involves application
of scientific methods and production techniques. In other words, technology can be defined as nature and type
of technical instruments used by a certain amount of labor.
Technological development helps in increasing productivity with the limited amount of resources. Countries
that have worked in the field of technological development grow rapidly as compared to countries that have
less focus on technological development. The selection of right technology also plays an role for the growth
of an economy. On the contrary, an inappropriate technology- results in high cost of production.
(e) Social and Political Factors:
Play a crucial role in economic growth of a country. Social factors involve customs, traditions, values and
beliefs, which contribute to the growth of an economy to a considerable extent.
For example, a society with conventional beliefs and superstitions resists the adoption of modern ways of
living. In such a case,
Abstract from an Article
The exploitation of natural resources is an essential condition of human existence, throughout the history
of mankind; humans have exploited natural resources to produce the materials they needed to sustain growing
human populations. Natural resources utilization, mining and processing have caused different types of
environmental damages. The environmental damage has in turn resulted in waste of arable land as well as
economic crops and trees. This paper reviews the effect of natural resources utilization on the ecosystem and
its remedies in Nigeria. Since much of the damage is inevitable if the natural resources must be developed,
both the government and the natural resource industry must be involved in taking precautionary and remedial
measures that can minimize the negative effects of natural resources utilization.
 THE REPORT WILL BE STRUCTURED IN SEVERAL THEMATIC CHAPTERS
CHAPTER 2: The history of human resource
use provides an historical overview of resource use and its contribution to human development in different
societies. It describes how annual
per capita consumption of natural resources increased from around 1 tonne in hunter-gatherer societies to 15-
30 tonnes in modern industrialised nations.
CHAPTER 3: Extraction of resources
focuses on the most recent historical period and illustrates how global extraction of natural resources
developed over the past 30 years. It sheds light on the distribution of resource extraction and related
environmental and social impacts across the world.
CHAPTER 4: Trade in resources
looks at one of the central economic drivers for increased resource extraction: international trade. Patterns,
magnitude and impacts of global trade in natural resources are illustrated at the level of countries as well as
through some example products.
CHAPTER 5: Consumption of resources
turns to the ultimate goal of resource extraction and trade: consumption. It illustrates the differences in per-
capita consumption levels in different world regions and discusses how different resources contribute to the
consumption basket of an average European citizen.
CHAPTER 6: Resource efficiency
discusses the links between resource use and economic performance. It illustrates why overall resource use is
increasing, despite the fact that we produce and consume with increasing resource efficiency.
CHAPTER 7: Scenarios for future resource use
addresses future aspects of resource use and what would happen if current patterns of development continued
at the global level.
CHAPTER 8: Towards sustainable resource use
finally presents the main actions necessary to achieve a more sustainable use of resources. It explains how
different sections of society, such as policy makers, business and consumers, can contribute towards a
sustainable development in Europe as well as globally. And it argues that high resource consumption is not a
requirement for high quality of life.

Other countries
INTRODUCTION
Nigeria is endowed with abundant mineral resources, which have contributed immensely to the national
wealth with associated socio-economic benefits. Mineral resources are an important source of wealth for a
nation but before they are harnessed, they have to pass through the stages of exploration, mining and
processing (Adekoya, 2003; Ajakaiye,
1985).
The exploitation of natural resources started to emerge in the 19th century as natural resource extraction
developed. During the 20th century, energy consumption rapidly increased. Today, about 80% of the world’s
energy consumption is sustained by the extraction of fossil fuels, which consists of oil, coal and gas (Florent,
2012). In the struggle for survival and development man creates a lot of negative impacts on the environment,
these impacts ranges from over-exploitation of resources, destruction of ecosystem and pollution. Often the
exploitation of nature has been done in a non-sustainable way, which is causing an increasing concern, as the
non-sustainable
exploitation of natural resources ultimately threatens the human existence. One difficult task faced by both
developed and developing countries is to guarantee the lasting utilization of natural resources at the lowest
possible environmental cost, while still assuring the economic and social development (Klawitter,
2004)
Utilization of natural resources is an essential condition of human existence, throughout the history of
mankind; humans have manipulated natural resources to produce the materials they needed to sustain growing
human populations. This refers primarily for food production and economic development but many other
entities from the natural environment have been extracted. Natural resources are an important material basis
for a stable natural economy and social development, they can be divided into two; the exhaustible: such as
minerals and the inexhaustible: such as forests and grasslands, with industrialization and urbanization
mankind’s great demands for natural resources and their large scale exploitation and their consumption has
resulted
in weakening, deterioration and exhaustion of these resources (Aina et al., 1992).
Nigeria with its large population and poor economic foundation is engaged in a process of increased
urbanization. The traditional mode of resource consuming, development and the current inefficient economy
are severely threatening the lasting utilization of natural resources. The rate at which forests are destroyed in
the name of furniture making, pulp and paper production and as a source of domestic energy is at alarming
rate. Some trends and problems of exploitation of natural resources include; specie extinctions, oil spillage,
gas flaring, deforestation, soil erosion, coastal degradation, ozone depletion, ground water contamination
among other things (Irina, 2008).
II. EFFECT OF DEFORESTATION
Deforestation is a process where vegetation is cut down without any simultaneous replanting for economic or
social reasons. Deforestation has negative implications on the environment in terms of soil erosion, loss of
biodiversity ecosystems, loss of wildlife and increased desertification among many other reasons
(www.rainforests.mongabay.com). Deforestation also has impacts on social aspects of the country,
specifically regarding economic issues, agriculture, conflict and most importantly, quality of life. According
to data taken over 2000 to 2005 Nigeria, located in the western region of Africa, has the largest deforestation
rates in the world, having lost
55.7% of their primary forests
(www.rainforests.mongabay.com).
Mongabay defines primary forests as forests with no visible signs of past or present human activities
(www.rainforests.mongabay.com). The annual rate of deforestation in Nigeria is 3.5%, approximately
350,000-400,000 hectares per year (www.fao.org). The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations lists the requirements of sustainable forest management as: extent of forest resources, biological
diversity, forest health and vitality, productive functions of forest resources, protective functions of forest
resources, socio-economic
functions and a legal, policy and institutional framework. Many aspects of the outline are currently not being
met and will continue to have detrimental effects if not quickly addressed.
A lot of damage has been done to Nigeria’s land through the processes of deforestation, notably contributing
to the overwhelming trend of desertification. Desertification is the encroachment of the desert on land what
was once fertile (Omofonmwan et al., 2008). A study conducted from 1901 to
2005 gathered that there was a temperature
increase in Nigeria of 1.1°C, while the global mean temperature increase was only 0.74°C. The same study
also found in the same period of time that the amount of rainfall in the country decreased by 81mm. It was
noticed that both of these trends simultaneously had sharp changes in the 1970s (www.mongabay.com). From
1990 to 2010 Nigeria nearly halved their amount of Forest Cover, moving from 17,234 to 9041 hectares. The
combination of extremely high deforestation rates, increased temperatures and decreasing rainfall are all
contributing to the desertification of the country. The carbon emissions from deforestation is also said to
account for 87% of the total carbon emissions of the country (Akinbami, 2003).
Nigeria’s wide biodiversity of 899
species of birds, 274 mammals, 154 reptiles, 53 amphibians and 4,715 species of higher plants will also be
strongly affected by the negative impacts of deforestation. The numbers of the rare Cross River gorilla have
decreased to around 300 individuals because of poaching by locals and mass habitat destruction
(www.mongabay.com). Although much of the motivation of deforestation stems from economic reasons it has
also lead to a lot of economic problems in an already unstable country. Along with economic issues,
deforestation has made it so that the land is incapable of as much agricultural production which is part of
many people’s survival. Issues such as these and the subject of the environment itself has contributed to many
conflicts in the country and even executions of environmental activists, such as Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nobel
Peace Prize nominee (www.rainforests.mongabay.com).
Much of the allowance for deforestation in Nigeria comes from their demand for fuel wood. 90% of the
Nigerian population stated that they relied on kerosene as the main energy source for cooking but because it is
expensive and often unavailable, 60% said they used fuel wood instead. The usage of fuel wood for cooking is
higher in rural areas of the country where more of the population is concentrated (Akinbami, 2003). There are
also incentives to people living in rural areas surrounding the process of deforestation because it is a source of
income to many of them. They extremely high levels of poverty in the country are very much connected to the
issue of deforestation.
The current state of the environment and has been allowed by the State Department of Forestry who have not
implemented any forest management policies in efforts to curb deforestation since the 1970s
(www.pgrfa.org). Without any conservation efforts or education, the society is not aware of how to properly
treat finite natural resources. Very few steps have been made to try to lower the deforestation rates and to stop
illegal logging.
Any solution to the problem of deforestation in Nigeria must be an approach that incorporates and
aggressively targets all aspects that are related to the problem. These should include areas of energy
alternatives, improved technology, forestry management, economic production, agriculture and security of the
locals that are dependent on the land. Energy alternatives include hydro power, solar energy and wind energy.
Solar energy is a great option
for Nigeria and will have exceptional results due to its geographical location. Nigeria has already
implemented windmills in some of its states but the more this approach is taken on the more energy that will
be produced in an environmentally sound and efficient way. Each of these proposals is accepted globally as
good alternatives to current energy production methods and has been encouraged by many environmental
organizations. Improving the technology of cook stoves will be especially effective for Nigeria which
currently has many households that require fuel wood for their cooking methods. In 2005 a group of countries,
called the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, developed a program to reduce the rates of deforestation that
contribute to CO2 emissions. The program is designed for all developing countries with a rainforest. The
developing countries receive money upon successful completion of lowering their country’s emissions
(www.news.mongabay.com. A similar concept has been designed by REDD, Reducing Emissions from
Deforestation in and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries. In REDD the countries are able to receive
much more money in the form of carbon credits which can be spent on more environmentally safe practices
(www.news.mongabay.com).
Deforestation all over the globe is
threatening the sustainability of the environment but has had especially detrimental effects in Nigeria due to
their high rates. Deforestation puts at risk all aspects of the environment, the economy and of the citizens of
the country.

change increased by 31.2% to 3.12% per annum. Forest has been cleared for logging, timber export,
subsistence agriculture and notably the
collection of wood for fuel which remains problematic in western Africa.
III. EFFECT OF MINING ON THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
Mining is the extraction (removal) of minerals and metals from the earth. The mining of minerals in Nigeria
accounts for only 0.3% of its GDP, due to the influence of its vast oil resources. The domestic mining industry
is underdeveloped, leading to Nigeria having to import minerals that it could produce domestically, such as
salt or iron ore. Rights to ownership of mineral resources is held by the Nigerian government, which grants
titles to organizations to explore, mine, and sell mineral resources.
Although mining provides a variety of socio-economic benefits but its environmental costs, if not well
handled can be massive in
terms of land conversion and degradation, habitat alteration, water and air pollution (Adekoya, 2003). In
Africa, the mining sector is thought to be the second largest source of pollution after agriculture; the sector is
resource intensive and generates high concentrations of waste and effluents (Aigbedion, 2007).
Mining from exploration to the closing stage has a serious impact on the environment. This impact can be
direct through the value chain activities, prospecting exploration, site development, ore extraction, mineral
dressing, smelting, refining/metallurgy, transportation, post mining activities and indirectly through the
impact of the degradation on the socio-cultural development of communities. In general, degradation arising
from mining includes; air pollution, water pollution, land and forest degradation, noise pollution, solid and
liquid waste disposal of toxic substances, as well as socio-cultural problems such as health complication,
conflicts, alcoholism, communal clash and inequality (Twerefou, 2009). All these have negative implications
for sustainable development and various livelihoods and therefore require urgent attention.
Mining is a common practice in Nigeria, the problem with the activity in the country, however, is the
inattention of the miners and the government to proper mining practices which makes life difficult for the
people. And many people because of their low level of education do not know their environmental obligations
under the Minerals and Mining Act, and that the adherence to best global practices in mining is a vital tool for
the promotion of sustainable growth in the industry (Ifeanyi et al., 2010)
IV. EFFECT OF PETROLEUM EXPLORATION
The petroleum industry in Nigeria, Africa is the largest industry and main generator of GDP in the continent's
most populous nation. Nigeria like most other developing countries in early part of the 70’s was engaged in
intensive natural resource exploitation as a way of stimulating economic growth, as at 1976 about
20 years after the start of oil exploration, figures available from federal office of statistics stated that oil has
come to account for about 84% of the national gross domestic product (GDP) of Nigeria, 95% of the total
export and over 80% of government annual revenue (Mathew, 2004). There is no doubt that the Nigerian oil
industry has affected the country in a variety of ways at the same time. On one hand it has fashioned a
remarkable economic development for the country, however on the negative side petroleum exploration have
adverse effects on the environment of the host communities like: oil spills, extensive deforestation, loss of
farms, loss of soil fertility, erosion, gas flaring, intensive exploitation, contamination of streams and rivers,
effluent discharge and disposal, conflict between oil companies and host communities.
The department of petroleum resources estimated 1.89 million barrels of petroleum were spilled into Niger
delta between 1976 and 1996 out of a total of 2.4 million barrels spilled in
4,835 incidents (John, 2010). A UNDP report
states that, there have been a total of 6,817 oil spills between 1976 and 2001, which account for a loss of 3
million barrels of oil which more than
70% was not recovered, most of these spills occurred offshore (69%), a quarter was in the swamps and 6%
spilled on land (Fawundu,
2006). The NNPC places the quantity of
petroleum jettisoned into the environment yearly at 2,300 cubic metres with an average of 300 individual
spills annually. (Browen, 1999). However, because this amount does not take into account “minor” spills, the
World Bank argues that the true quantity of petroleum spilled into the environment could be as much as ten
times the officially claimed quantity; oil spill has a major impact on the ecosystem and the human health
(John, 2010).

Considering the possibility of environmental incidents arising from deliberate acts of sabotage, extensive
contamination of soil and water is to be expected. With frequent rains and a high water table, the oil
contamination could have been carried further down the delta through the creeks contaminating surface water
and river sediments. The contamination of soil, surface water and ground water in turn would have adverse
socio-economic impacts on agriculture and fisheries (United Nations Environmental Program, 2007).
Nigeria also flares more natural gas
associated with oil exploration than any other country in the world and it releases toxic components into the
atmosphere and contribute to climate change. Gas flares have potentially harmful effects on the environment,
health and livelihood of the communities as they release a variety of harmful and poisonous chemicals
including nitrogen dioxides, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic compound such as benzene, toluene, xylene
and hydrogen sulfide as well as carcinogens like benzapyrene and dioxin which can cause health
complications (John, 2010).
V. THE REMEDIES
Sustainable development is a dynamic
process and it necessitates continual adjustments to cope with changes in the economy and the environment. It
is recommended that to ensure environmental sustainability and sustainable development in the exploitation of
natural resources, the concept of material stewardship should be adopted and implemented.
To encourage study and adapt techniques for risk assessment, resource pricing and exploitation which are
favorable to the environment. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) should be well documented, guide
lines for implementation should be put in place and undertake monitoring and evaluation of environmental
degradation and carryout environmental reports so that natural resource exploitation bodies should carry out
mandatory precaution, remedies or compensation for damage done. The oil and gas sector should ensure the
integrity of their pipe lines; follow the guideline policy of gas flaring and in times of oil spillage the best
industrial technology should be employed to effect remediation.
To establish a system for continuous monitoring of natural resources by the government and social groups in
order to encourage public participation in the activities aimed at sustainable development of natural resources
like: recycling, waste reduction, afforestation, pollution control, bioremediation and game reserves, and to set
up a mechanism for coordination or elimination of discrepancies arising during the implementation of some
policies related to utilization of natural resources and provide appropriate sanctions.
To establish an information system
related to the management, protection and rational utilization of natural resources under the direction of
government and in collaboration with environmental expert, academia, research institutes, and international
organization such as; United Nations Development Program (UNDP) , Millennium Development Goals
(MDG’s), World Health Organization (WHO), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
VI. CONCLUSION
The utilization of natural resources has
caused different types of environmental damages which include ecological disturbances, destruction of plants
and animals, pollution of air, water and land, instability of soil and rock masses, landscape degradation,
desertification and global warming. Therefore, it’s imperative for government and individuals to shift
emphasis from waste disposal to waste minimization through sorting, recycling, bioremediation, aforestation,
sewage treatment and pollution control. The government should also provide the regulatory legislation with
appropriate sanctions or where these regulatory bodies already exist, the enforcement of laws and policy
implementation should be enacted.

Population growth contributes to the new inventions and growth of a country.

Enhances nation security
Today, civilians in several small nations such as South Korea have to carry mandatory military service. To
maintain the integrity of a nation during war, the government necessitates these services among public. Such
practices do not take place in countries with high population growth. With more civilians at hands, the
government gets the opportunity to choose the physically fit soldiers to keep the country secured from
external disturbances. In this way, population growth helps in boosting nation’s solidarity.
Technological innovations
High population means the huge number of brains. More demand of every basic necessity in such countries
encourages these brains to bring new ideas to fulfill required needs of a nation. Green Revolution in India in
the 1970s is a fair example of innovative technology. The increasing food demand led to the invention of High
Yield variety seeds which doubled the production and maintained food security of the country. Also, today’s
popular IT technologies developed in countries with high population growth.
Economic benefits
Population growth provides numerous business opportunities. It leads to increase in demand for goods and
services. And this demand encourages businessmen to try their luck in manufacturing the products and
compete in the market. The countries with high production in specific goods gain monetary benefits by
exporting them. Increase in the labor force makes a country capable and enhances its infrastructure
advancement.
Negative effects of population growth:
Numerous factors stimulate government to enact laws in limiting population growth.
Unemployment
Unemployment is an important cause of the overpopulation. With an increase in the number of individuals for
few jobs, the competition rises and a small amount gets an employment. And those jobs are either disguised or
an underemployment. Many developing and under-developed countries face this problem as they do not
possess required infrastructure and facilities to generate employment for masses. Also, the rates of living
standard, diseases, and suicides are high, in these countries.
Food security issues
A nutritious food and a 3 meals-a-day is a major problem arises with the population growth. As food is a basic
requirement of an individual, the demand increases with population. The government of countries with low
capacity and cropping area finds difficulty in fulfilling these demands. At times, these countries have to
import grains in a large amount, which results in limiting the budget set for the profitable development. And
the high pressure on the available food stock engenders inadequate supply, which leads to malnourishment
and diseases, thereafter.
Environment degradation
History shows that high food demand changed the forests into the cultivable lands. Low forest area means
decreased wildlife, which increases animals-humans conflict at the boundary regions. Also, cutting of forest
leads to unanticipated climate changes, which impact the human life and settlements. The population growth
enhances the limited natural resources use such as coal and petroleum, which degrades the environment in the
form of air, soil, and water pollution.
Low per capita income
For a balanced per capita income, the economic and population growth must go hand in hand. In countries,
where population growth rate exceeds economic growth, the per capita income lowers. This, in turn,
minimizes the savings and lowers the living standard among the general population.
Lower land-man ratio
The agriculture sector employs maximum labor force in developing countries. In countries such as India, the
overpopulation in rural areas has led to the land fragmentation. This leads to the lowering land-man ratio,
which means low income per head, a foremost cause of poverty.
Poverty
With population growth, the demand for every basic good increase. This demand leads to inflation, which
means higher spending on necessities. The low income and high price increase cost of living, which drags an
individual to poverty.
Many studies criticize population growth, as it impacts a nation’s self-reliance to great extent. Today, the
population across the world is increasing at alarming rate. The concern regarding its consequences is fair but
the need of an hour is to find the solutions to limit them. At first, the developing/ underdeveloped countries
with high growth rate such as India, Nigeria must bring out the government policies and create awareness
among masses regarding the issues arising from overpopulation. Also, the negative effects can only be
minimized if government and citizens work together to achieve the same goal.
COP
Following two weeks of negotiations, UN Climate Change Conference – COP25 has been concluded with a
decisión taken on Sunday morning.
Governments have failed to respond to the emergency of the climate crisis as the talks fell victim to major
differences between countries that are proving hard to resolve..
The UNFCCC released the following new negotiating texts this morning. On first analysis, observers
complained that the text was weak on ambition. One said: “I didn’t think the [Chilean] Presidency could make
the text any weaker – but they did.”
Observers of the summit in Madrid held G20 countries – especially with the US, Brazil, Australia, Saudi
Arabia – and major oil, gas and coal companies responsible for undermining the climate ambition and
blocking the progress for better response to this global challenge.
Canada, Japan, China and India were also faulted for their complacency as they failed to support vulnerable
nations in the face of brutal impacts and push for a more robust collective response in 2020. The EU tried to
play its role as bridge-builder between developing and developed countries. However, it will take a major
diplomatic push and bigger leadership alliance to deliver substantial outcomes at COP26 in Glasgow.

2020 climate plans: strengthened urgency text directly pointing to emissions gap.
COP25’s final decision text “re-emphasizes with serious concern the urgent need to address the significant
gap between the aggregate effect of Parties’ mitigation efforts in terms of global annual emissions of
greenhouse gases by 2020 (…)”, at the same time that it “stresses the urgency of enhanced ambition in order
to ensure the highest possible mitigation and adaptation efforts by all Parties.”
Despite this, the text is generally very circular (i.e. no clear one-sentence statement “in light of climate
urgency encourages parties to submit enhanced NDCs in 2020”).
Carbon markets:
Negotiators failed to reach an outcome on carbon markets. In the final hours of negotiations, over 30
governments joined behind the San Jose Principles in an effort to preserve the integrity of carbon market rules
and prevent loopholes and the ability for double-counting carbon credits.
Loss & Damage:
Santiago network established to lead more work on implementation to minimize, avoid and recover from loss
and damage. However, the final text is weaker than the previous version.
In term of finance, it “urges” scale up of support by developed countries and other Parties in a position to do
so, as well as private and non-governmental organizations, funds and other stakeholders; but then only invites
the Green Climate Fund (GCF) Board to continue providing resources for loss and damage, and invites it to
take into account, within its mandate, the strategic workstreams of the WIM Executive Committee.
Oceans & Land
New UN work to commence on the ocean and climate change to consider how to strengthen mitigation and
adaptation action; as well as in land and climate change adaptation-related matters.
SEE COP 26 ---- google it .
Population growth and its impacts on nature and natural resources
March 15, 2020 by Vijay Choudhary Leave a Comment
Population growth and its impacts – complete detail. Population growth and its impacts on nature and natural
resources. The geometric rise in human population levels during the twentieth century is the fundamental
cause of the loss of biodiversity.
Nature and natural resources are destroyed as human populations grow. Nature and natural resources are
destroyed as human populations grow and require more space for habitation and farming, and more fuel for
cooking. Demand for cultivable land, fuel wood/charcoal and other forest products, arising from the needs of
the non-agricultural (mostly, urban) population and the export sector.
Population growth is less important a factor here: income growth and the technological factor play a much
greater role in this case than in the preceding one. In this context, a national policy of limiting population
growth probably has a limited effect. Demand for forest products from non-agricultural sectors (industries,
mining etc., including through export channels). The role of population growth as a determinant of growth in
demand is even weaker in this case; technological change and policies can carry far greater weight than
demographic change. Therefore, population growth policies probably have a negligible impact on this
component………….
Population growth is responsible for degradation of nature and natural resources. Population growth has
become a major force behind nature degradation in many rural and urban environments. The equality of the
environment is constantly losing its status due to increase in population growth in most countries of world.
Environmental degradation is a situation where the environment loses its natural equilibrium. Population has
been a chief agent of environmental degradation in most cities of the world. He further explain that man main
occupations were hunting and gathering of fruits but later as human population increased, man invented new
techniques which has constitute great menace to the natural environment. population growth in these
communities have lead to increasing environmental problems such as loss of plant and animal species,
pollution, air population, soil infertility among others.
Nature and natural resources are destroyed as human populations grow and require more space for habitation
and farming, and more fuel for cooking. In many cases the local people lost their traditional power over the
groves, and their groves have been opened up to commercial forestry.
All world facing deforestation and environmental degradation as the population grows, and with it the demand
for space and resources. Much of the original vegetation in many places has been cleared, and sacred groves
remain as refuges for plants and animals. However, even the sacred groves are being encroached upon as
demand for space and resources increases. Demand for cultivable land, fuel wood and other forest products,
for the needs of a growing agricultural population. In this context, it may often be true that “policies to slow
down population growth and enhance alternative employment opportunities are a necessary complement to
strategies to attain sustainable agricultural development”. There is some uncertainty; however, as to how
much national policies of this kind actually influence the growth of rural populations, especially those living
in subsistence agriculture, because those populations typically are those who benefit the least from
reproductive health services.
Demand for cultivable land, fuel wood/charcoal and other forest products, arising from the needs of the non-
agricultural (mostly, urban) population and the export sector. Population growth is less important a factor
here: income growth and the technological factor play a much greater role in this case than in the preceding
one. In this context, a national policy of limiting population growth probably has a limited effect. Demand for
forest products from non-agricultural sectors (industries, mining etc., including through export channels). The
role of population growth as a determinant of growth in demand is even weaker in this case; technological
change and policies can carry far greater weight than demographic change. Therefore, population growth
policies probably have a negligible impact on this component.
The geometric rise in human population levels during the twentieth century is the fundamental cause of the
loss of biodiversity. It has led to an unceasing search for more arable land for food production and livestock
grazing, and for wood for fuel, construction, and energy. Previously undisturbed areas (which may or may not
be suitable for the purposes to which they are constrained) are being transformed into agricultural or pasture
land, stripped of wood, or mined for resources to support the energy needs of an ever-growing human
population. Humans also tend to settle in areas of high biodiversity, which often have relatively rich soils and
other attractions for human activities. This leads to great threats to biodiversity, especially since many of these
areas have numerous endemic species.

https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/chemicals-waste/what-we-do/special-programme/special-programme-
projects-database-34
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0010440
https://www.fao.org/3/i6583e/i6583e.pdf
https://www.un.org/esa/earthsummit/pakis-cp.htm

Revisiting Population Growth: The Impact of Ecological Limits

Demographers are predicting that world population will climb to 10 billion later this century. But with the
planet heating up and growing numbers of people putting increasing pressure on water and food supplies and
on life-sustaining ecosystems, will this projected population boom turn into a bust?
The hard part about predicting the future, someone once said, is that it hasn’t happened yet. So it’s a bit
curious that so few experts question the received demographic wisdom that the Earth will be home to roughly
9 billion people in 2050 and a stable 10 billion at the century’s end. Demographers seem comfortable
projecting that life expectancy will keep rising while birth rates drift steadily downward, until human numbers
hold steady with 3 billion more people than are alive today.

What’s odd about this demographic forecast is how little it seems to square with environmental ones. There’s
little scientific dispute that the world is heading toward a warmer and harsher climate, less dependable water
and energy supplies, less intact ecosystems with fewer species, more acidic oceans, and less naturally
productive soils. Are we so smart and inventive that not one of these trends will have any impact on the
number of human beings the planet sustains? When you put demographic projections side by side with
environmental ones, the former actually mock the latter, suggesting that nothing in store for us will be more
than an irritant. Human life will be less pleasant, perhaps, but it will never actually be threatened.
Some forecast that apocalyptic horsemen old and new could cause widespread death as the environment
unravels.
Some analysts, ranging from scientists David Pimentel of Cornell University to financial advisor and
philanthropist Jeremy Grantham, dare to underline the possibility of a darker alternative future. Defying the
optimistic majority, they suggest that humanity long ago overshot a truly sustainable world population,
implying that apocalyptic horsemen old and new could cause widespread death as the environment unravels.
Most writers on environment and population are loathe to touch such predictions. But we should be asking, at
least, whether such possibilities are real enough to temper the usual demographic confidence about future
population projections.
For now, we can indeed be highly confident that world population will top 7 billion by the end of this year.
We’re close to that number already and currently adding about 216,000 people per day. But the United
Nations “medium variant” population projection, the gold standard for expert expectation of the demographic
future, takes a long leap of faith: It assumes no demographic influence from the coming environmental
changes that could leave us living on what NASA climatologist James Hansen has dubbed “a different
planet.”
How different? Significantly warmer, according to the 2007 assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change — as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit more than today on average. Sea levels from two to six
feet higher than today’s — vertically, meaning that seawater could move hundreds of feet inland over
currently inhabited coastal land. Greater extremes of both severe droughts and intense storms. Shifting
patterns of infectious disease as new landscapes open for pathogen survival and spread. Disruptions of global
ecosystems as rising temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns buffet and scatter animal and plant
species. The eventual melting of Himalayan glaciers, upsetting supplies of fresh water on which 1.3 billion
South Asians and Chinese (and, of course, that number is rising) depend for food production.
Population growth itself undermines the basis for its own continuation.
And that’s just climate change, based on the more dramatic end of the range the IPCC and other scientific
groups project. Yet even if we leave aside the likelihood of a less accommodating climate, population growth
itself undermines the basis for its own continuation in other ways. Since 1900, countries home to nearly half
the world’s people have moved into conditions of chronic water stress or scarcity based on falling per-capita
supply of renewable fresh water. Levels of aquifers and even many lakes around the world are falling as a
result. In a mere 14 years, based on median population projections, most of North Africa and the Middle East,
plus Pakistan, South Africa and large parts of China and India, will be driven by water scarcity to increasing
dependence on food imports “even at high levels of irrigation efficiency,” according to the International
Water Management Institute.
The world’s net land under cultivation has scarcely expanded since 1960, with millions of acres of farmland
gobbled by urban development while roughly equal amounts of less fertile land come under the plow. The
doubling of humanity has cut the amount of cropland per person in half. And much of this essential asset is
declining in quality as constant production saps nutrients that are critical to human health, while the soil itself
erodes through the double whammy of rough weather and less-than-perfect human care. Fertilizer helps
restore fertility (though rarely micronutrients), but at ever-higher prices and through massive inputs of non-
renewable resources such as oil, natural gas, and key minerals. Phosphorus in particular is a non-renewable
mineral essential to all life, yet it is being depleted and wasted at increasingly rapid rates, leading to fears of
imminent “peak phosphorus.”
We can recycle phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, and other essential minerals and nutrients, but the number of
people that even the most efficient recycling could support may be much less than today’s world population.
In 1997, Canadian geographer Vaclav Smil calculated that were it not for the industrial fixation of nitrogen,
the world’s population would probably not have exceeded 4 billion people — 3 billion fewer than are alive
today. It’s likely that organic agriculture can feed many more people than it does currently, but the hard
accounting of the nutrients in today’s 7 billion human bodies, let alone tomorrow’s projected 10 billion,
challenges the hope that a climate-neutral agriculture system could feed us all.
As population growth sends human beings into once-isolated ecosystems, new disease vectors thrive.
Food production also requires many services of nature that conventional agronomy tends to ignore in
projecting future food supplies, and the dependability of these services appears to be fraying. Roughly one out
of every two or three forkfuls of food relies on natural pollination, yet many of the world’s most important
pollinators are in trouble. Honeybees are succumbing to the tiny varroa mite, while vast numbers of bird
species face threats ranging from habitat loss to house cats. Bats and countless other pest-eaters are falling
prey to environmental insults scientists don’t yet fully understand. And the loss of plant and animal
biodiversity generally makes humanity ever-more dependent on a handful of key crop species and chemical
inputs that make food production less, rather than more, resilient. One needn’t argue that the rising grain
prices, food riots, and famine parts of the world have experienced in the past few years are purely an outcome
of population growth to worry that at some point further growth will be limited by constrained food supplies.
As population growth sends human beings into ecosystems that were once isolated, new disease vectors
encounter the attraction of large packages of protoplasm that walk on two legs and can move anywhere on the
planet within hours. In the last half-century, dozens of new infectious diseases have emerged. The most
notable, HIV/AIDS, has led to some 25 million excess deaths, a megacity-sized number even in a world
population of billions. In Lesotho, the pandemic pushed the death rate from 10 deaths per thousand people per
year in the early 1990s to 18 per thousand a decade later. In South Africa the combination of falling fertility
and HIV-related deaths has pressed down the population growth rate to 0.5 percent annually, half the rate of
the United States. As the world’s climate warms, the areas affected by such diseases will likely shift in
unpredictable ways, with malarial and dengue-carrying mosquitoes moving into temporal zones while
warming waters contribute to cholera outbreaks in areas once immune.
To be fair, the demographers who craft population projections are not actively judging that birth, death, and
migration rates are immune to the effects of environmental change and natural resource scarcity. Rather they
argue, reasonably enough, that there is no scientifically rigorous way to weigh the likelihood of such
demographic impacts. So it makes more sense to simply extend current trend lines in population change —
rising life expectancy, falling fertility, higher proportions of people living in urban areas. These trends are
then extrapolated into an assumedly surprise-free future. The well-known investor caveat that past
performance is no guarantee of future results goes unstated in the conventional demographic forecast.
Agronomists have lost some of their confidence that food production will keep pace with rising populations.
Is such a surprise-free future likely? That’s a subjective question each of us must answer based on our own
experience and hunches. Next to no research has assessed the likely impacts of human-caused climate change,
ecosystem disruption, or energy and resource scarcity on the two main determinants of demographic change:
births and deaths. Migration related to climate change is a more common subject for research, with
projections ranging from 50 million to 1 billion people displaced by environmental factors — including
climate change — by 2050. The mainstream projections cluster around 200 million, but no one argues that
there is a compelling scientific argument for any of these numbers.
The IPCC and other climate-change authorities have noted that extremely hot weather can kill, with the
elderly, immune-compromised, low-income, or socially isolated among the most vulnerable. An estimated
35,000 people died during the European heat wave of 2003. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention cites research projecting that heat-related deaths could multiply as much as seven-fold by the
century’s end.
In the past few years, agronomists have lost some of their earlier confidence that food production, even with
genetically modified crops, will keep pace with rising global populations in a changing climate. Already,
weather-related disasters, from blistering heat waves to flooded farm fields, have contributed to widening
gaps between food production and global consumption. The resulting price increases — stoked also by
biofuels production encouraged in part to slow climate change — have led to food riots that cost lives and
helped topple governments from the Middle East to Haiti.
If this is what we see a decade into the new century, what will unfold in the next 90 years? “What a horrible
world it will be if food really becomes short from one year to the next,” wheat physiologist Matthew
Reynolds told The New York Times in June. “What will that do to society?” What, more specifically, will it
do to life expectancy, fertility, and migration? Fundamentally, these questions are unanswerable from the
vantage point of the present, and there’s a lesson in this. We shouldn’t be so confident that the demographers
can expertly forecast what the world’s population will look like beyond the next few years. A few
demographers are willing to acknowledge this themselves.
“Continuing world population growth through mid-century seems nearly certain,” University of California,
Berkeley, demographer Ronald Lee noted recently in Science. “But nearly all population forecasts…
implicitly assume that population growth will occur in a neutral zone without negative economic or
environmental feedback. [Whether this occurs] will depend in part on the success of policy measures to
reduce the environmental impact of economic and demographic growth.”
It’s certainly possible that ingenuity, resilience and effective governance will manage the stresses humanity
faces in the decades ahead and will keep life expectancy growing in spite of them. Slashing per-capita energy
and resource consumption would certainly help. A sustainable population size, it’s worth adding, will be
easier to maintain if societies also assure women the autonomy and contraceptive means they need to avoid
unwanted pregnancies. For anyone paying attention to the science of climate change and the realities of a
rapidly changing global environment, however, it seems foolish to treat projections of 10 billion people at the
end of this century as respectfully as a prediction of a solar eclipse or the appearance of a well-studied comet.
A bit more humility about population’s path in an uncertain and dangerous century would be more consistent
with the fact that the future, like a comet astronomers have never spotted, has not yet arrived.
https://www.envpk.com/grassland-and-shrubland-ecosystem-of-pakistan-climatic-biome/

Grassland and Shrubland Ecosystem of Pakistan – Climatic Biome

Grasslands: It is defined as open lands that are continuously covered with broadleaf herbs, little woody
vegetation, sedges, and grasses. Taller and woody vegetation is absent.
Shrublands: It is defined as areas that are covered with dense but low height shrub vegetation like sedges,
willow, dogwood, or tall grasses.
Grassland and Shrubland Biome: This biome consists of high-altitude grasses and shrubs. Grassland and
shrubland biome is a combination of short nonwoody vegetation and tall grasses – woody vegetation. The
environmental conditions vary deepening upon the region.
Characteristics of Grassland and Shrubland Biome: This biome is characterized by scattered vegetation
including trees that are present along with water bodies. The climate is semi-arid and this biome is present
between deserts and forest regions.
GRASSLANDS AND SHRUBLANDS BIOME OF PAKISTAN
The grassland and shrubland biome of Pakistan includes Northwestern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows.
Location of Grassland and Shrubland Biome of Pakistan:  This biome is present in lower Chitral, Waziristan,
Kashmir, and Gilgit.
Climate of Grassland and Shrubland Biome of Pakistan: This biome is present at 3,300 and 3,600 altitudes.
The recorded rainfall is up to 250mm. The region receives rainfall from the monsoon season. The climate of
the grassland and shrubland biome of Pakistan is characterized as dry temperate with subtropic and sub-humid
weather conditions. The growing season is short and cool. The precipitation is in the form of heavy snow at
higher altitudes. The temperature ranges from 5 °C to 15 °C.
BIODIVERSITY OF GRASSLANDS AND SHRUBLANDS BIOME OF PAKISTAN
The scattered vegetation in the grasslands and shrublands biome of Pakistan holds a variety of animals and
plants. Plants generally include herbaceous plants, flowering plants, and stunted growth vegetation.
THREATS TO GRASSLANDS AND SHRUBLANDS BIOME OF PAKISTAN
The key threats are drilling of natural reserves, mining activities, environmental pollution including land
degradation, clearing land for agricultural activities, the introduction of invasive plant species,
overgrazing, climate change, bushfires, livestock production, etc.
These are low vegetative areas covered with grasses and shrubs and often subjected to degradation due to
infrastructure development such as road construction. Urbanization and industrialization are also affecting the
productivity of this biome.
IMPORTANCE OF GRASSLANDS AND SHRUBLANDS BIOME OF PAKISTAN
This biome is considered very productive at the national level. The Pastoralist community of Pakistan lives
around the grassland and shrubland regions. They use these lands for feeding their animals and several
products are prepared from animals’ wool. Animal husbandry holds economic importance for the region.

UNEP
UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Chemicals and Health Branch is leading UNEP’s activities on
chemicals and waste. The Branch is the main catalytic force in the UN system for concerted global action on
the environmentally sound management of chemicals and waste. As such, its programme of work reflects
global priorities identified by Governments and other stakeholders, including the mandates of its governing
body, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA).
A number of reports on chemicals and waste management are being developed to be presented at the 5th
session of UNEA. They cover topics which are emerging issues ranging from strengthening the science-policy
interface, to assessing linkages with other clusters, and assessing current issues of global concern. Some
reports bear a specific focus on the environmental and health impacts of pesticides and fertilizers, the
environmental impacts of antimicrobial resistance. Whereas others, such as the manuals on green and
sustainable chemistry, are setting the path for solutions.
The Chemicals and Health Branch supports a range of projects addressing issues on: Lead paint, Chemicals in
products, Environmental persistent pharmaceutical pollutants, Endocrine disrupting chemicals, Highly
hazardous pesticides, Sustainable chemistry, Antimicrobial resistance and Lead and cadmium. These projects
contribute towards addressing the Emerging Policy Issues. 
The new Knowledge Management Platform of SAICM, the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals
Management, where you can learn about SAICM emerging policy issues through resources, reading news and
opinion articles, being informed of events around the globe, and exchanging with other people working on the
sound management of chemicals and waste. 

LESS IMPORTANT
A different approach which has been released since 1990, among the circles of environmental economists, is
the notion that the natural tendency of the capitalist economy toward “dematerialization” is a key response to
all the environmental problems. In particular, the increased energy efficiency and the development of the
“new economy” in the developed capitalist economies decoupling economic growth from energy and
materials use as well as from waste disposal, minimizing the environmental impacts of any further GDP
growth. According to this view, in fact, no measures are necessary to reduce the environmental impact of
growth. The continuous innovation as well as the market laws resolves the problem. Ideally political decisions
should simply accelerate the trend toward “dematerialization” and ensure that the environment is integrated
into an innovative economy, which is more knowledge oriented [57,58].
The aforementioned hypothesis is presented with terms of the environmental Kuznets curve (Fig. 8.1). The
Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is often used to describe the relationship between economic growth and
environmental quality. It refers to the hypothesis of an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic
output per capita and some measures of environmental quality. The shape of the curve can be explained as
follows: As GDP per capita rises, so does environmental degradation. However, beyond a certain point,
increases in GDP per capita lead to reductions in environmental damage [59–61]. Specifically:

Since the early 1990s, economists and econometricians have been industrious in estimating empirical relations
between GDP and environmental quality indicators. Typically, they have used cross-sectional data—country
data for a particular year. For some quality indicators, they have found a relation that looks like an inverse U
(Fig. 1).
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Figure 1. An estimated empirical relation between GDP and environmental quality indicators.
The interpretation is simple. Very poor countries with low industrialization are not damaging the environment
much and as a result the environmental quality indicator is good (in this case, a low sulfur emission). When
the country starts the growth process, the environmental damages will increase. When income per capita
increases, the demand for a cleaner environment will increase, environmental legislation will be enacted, and
the environment will improve. Because the curve is similar (but inverse) to the curves Kuznets (Economic
Growth and Income Inequality, 1955) estimated for the relationship between income inequality and GDP per
capita, they have been known as the environmental Kuznets curves. For an overview and examples
of environmental Kuznets curves, see Environment and Development, 2 (4), October 1997.
The breakthrough for this kind of analysis came with the World Development Report (1992), which was
devoted to the environment. The existence of these curves was taken to be an indication of possible win–win
situations. By stimulating growth, one would also in the long run stimulate environmental regulations. It is
clear, however, that the analysis is quite muddy complex.
First, environmental Kuznets curves have only been established for a few environmental indicators. Second, at
least earlier, the specifications of the relation between the quality measure and GDP per capita were
quadratics, which almost certainly forced the curves to look like an inverse U. Third, the studies did not
include environmental spillovers between countries. Fourth, they did not examine possible relations between
indices of freedom and the environment. It has been shown that whenever people have had the right to voice
concern about environmental degradation, the environment has improved, irrespective of the per capita
income. Locally, in many cultures people have had a direct influence on, for example, local water pollution,
which has improved even in very poor countries. It is therefore possible that the environmental Kuznets
curves measure not the effect of income growth but growth in freedom.
However, most important is that the environmental Kuznets curves—if they exist in any meaningful way—are
not optimal in any sense of the concept. Typically, a country would do much better to develop institutional
and regulatory reforms for better environmental management than just trust that economic growth will
automatically solve environmental problems. In this sense, the belief in environmental Kuznets curves and the
associated belief in win–win situations are very dangerous.

Volume 6
Raymond J. MacDermott, ... J. Bang, in Encyclopedia of Environmental Health (Second Edition), 2019
The Environmental Kuznets Curve
Simon Kuznets described the relationship between per capita income and income inequality as an inverted-U
or what later became known as the Kuznets curve (for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1971). This curve was
modified to represent the work done by Grossman and Krueger on the NAFTA and its effects on the
environment, known as the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC).
The EKC shows the relationship between per capita income and environmental degradation (Fig. 3). That is,
as income rises, the degradation of environment increases. However, once a threshold in income is reached,
the degradation begins to subside. The EKC contradicted the widely held notion that wealthy nations damage
their environment more quickly than poorer nations. It was believed that wealthy countries, in producing and
consuming vast quantities of goods and services, used natural resources at a much greater rate and would
subsequently damage their environment at a faster pace.

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Fig. 3. The environmental Kuznets curve.
The EKC suggests this is not the case. Poorer nations are believed to have cleaner environments simply due to
lower levels of consumption. However, there is another reason. Poorer nations tend to lack industrialization.
Their focus is instead on agriculture. As these economies develop, they build an industrial base that inevitably
rises pollution levels. However, as this development continues, their preferences will change. These countries
will adopt cleaner technologies. Rather than allocating their resources to output, they will choose to devote
them to provide cleaner water and air. At this point, environmental degradation will begin to slow and even
regress. Further growth will lead to more service-oriented economies and even greater environmental gains.
This will further be supported by firms setting themselves environmental responsibility goals, not further
considered in this contribution. Hence, countries appear to evolve from clean agriculture to dirty industries to
cleaner industries to service.
One might ask where do these industries go. They are very likely relocated abroad to other countries lower on
the EKC. This is known as the pollution haven hypothesis where firms relocate their production to countries
with weaker environmental regulations.
A word of caution is appropriate here. Some view the EKC as advocating higher income as the solution to
environmental concerns. If this were the case, a simple transfer of money income from wealthy to poor
nations would be the remedy. Growing out of the problem is the most appropriate approach. How is this
different? Higher levels of wealth bring property rights. In underdeveloped countries, resources tend to be
treated as commons. As these countries grow, greater stress is put on these resources. Individual property
rights are established to provide an incentive for conservation, and in turn, less environmental degradation.
Empirical work has focused on two key questions. First, does the indicator (the measure of environmental
degradation) display an inverted-U in relation to per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP)? Second, what is
the threshold level of per capita GDP beyond which environmental quality improves?
Several measures have been used to demonstrate the inverted-U shape of the EKC. Sulfur dioxide emissions,
toxic waste, and measures of water and sanitation pollution all appear to rise and then fall with per capita
GDP. However, not all measures of pollution display this pattern. Some such as CO2 appear to be strictly on
the rise. That is, it continues to rise with wealth. Others only show environmental improvement. In both cases,
advocates of the EKC find simple justification. In the case of continued environmental degradation, the
turning point has simply not been reached yet. They believe that these pollutants will taper off. However, the
requisite level of per capita income has not yet been reached. In the other case, where pollution is strictly
falling, the turning point has already been reached. The data show only the downward side of the EKC. After
all, before environmental quality can improve, it must first deteriorate.
As for the threshold, many attempts have been made to estimate a range for each indicator. For instance, the
threshold for sulfur dioxide has been estimated to be a per capita income of approximately $6100 (in 2001 US
dollars), whereas that for fecal coliform is believed to be approximately $2300. As was mentioned earlier in
text, some indicators fail to display any threshold either because it has been long since reached or because no
country has yet reached it.
It appears that the threshold varies by indicator and can be tied into development. At low levels of income,
efforts are focused on more immediate forms of pollution such as fecal coliform, a waterborne pollutant,
which indicates the presence of sewage contamination of a waterway. As countries develop and incomes rise,
attention is turned to other, less pressing pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, which is a contributor to acid rain.
Thus far, the positive effects of trade on growth and the subsequent impact on the environment have been
shown. The focus would now be on trade agreements and their effectiveness as a tool to improve the
environment.
Do cross-border areas follow the EKC hypothesis? To answer this question, let us look at the Lower Mekong
Basin (LMB). Classification of these data is based on the following approaches: BORDER (representing
“international border”) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN; representing “ASEAN
membership”). Specifically, we divide the whole samples into four groups according to the following criteria:
•
BORDER equals 1 for the sample to be collected at a place near an international border and 0 otherwise
•
ASEAN equals 1 for the sample to be collected at a place with ASEAN membership and 0 otherwise.
The water quality indicators of the LMB are represented by total phosphate (TOTP) and chemical oxygen
demand (COD). The estimated results, as shown in Figure 3.5, are less statistically significant for BORDER
to be equal to 1 than otherwise. Thus they suggest that the determination of water pollution is more
complicated in cross-border areas than in other areas. In other words, when dealing with the determinants of
cross-border water pollution, care should be taken with respect to the application of the EKC hypothesis or
else noneconomic factors should be included.

Green economy and sustainable development

Saumya Verma, Deepika Kandpal, in Environmental Sustainability and Economy, 2021
1 Introduction
Globally, there has been a significant deterioration in environmental quality over the years, which can be
attributed to climate change. An increase in global average surface temperature above 1.5°C is predicted to
cause more frequent and intense climate and weather extremes, such as floods, droughts, heat waves, along
with other effects, such as sea-level rise (IPCC Special Report 2018). Throughout the history of mankind,
natural and manmade catastrophes have plagued human well-being. Be it the 2008 recession or the health
pandemic in 2019, the crisis initially reduces the burden on the environment through lower economic activity.
However, economic recovery from the crisis without environmental concern may worsen climate change
beyond repair (Hepburn et al., 2020). Consequently, it requires a policy response that drives economies along
the path of recovery, without renouncing the climate change goals.
The links between economy and the environment are multifaceted. While environmental degradation cripples
economic growth by damaging natural capital, a higher level of economic activity also leads to environmental
degradation (Ocampo, 2011). Nevertheless, an increase in per capita GDP beyond a threshold provides
opportunities for technological innovation, which may improve environmental quality (Stern et al., 1996). The
tradeoff between higher economic growth and environmental quality is known as Environmental Kuznets
Curve (EKC) hypothesis which postulates an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic growth and
environmental degradation (Shafik, 1994). However, it should be noted that empirical evidence on the EKC
hypothesis is mixed. For example, Lau et al. (2019) provide evidence in favor of EKC hypothesis for OECD
countries during 1995–2015, whereas Kisswani et al. (2019) find that the EKC hypothesis does not hold good
for a sample of five countries of ASEAN during 1971–2013.
The economy-environment interlinkage is incomplete without an understanding of the impact of climate
change policies on present and future economic growth. Mitigating climate change requires incurring
abatement expenditure in the current period, the benefits of which are enjoyed by both current and future
generations (Padilla, 2002). However, such policies warrant short and long-term economic growth by
stimulating demand, reducing future losses in output, and increasing technological innovation (Dechezlepretre
et al., 2019). The decision of whether to undertake a mitigation project is based on a cost-benefit analysis. The
social discount factor used for discounting benefits and costs of the project plays a crucial role in determining
if it will be viable to undertake the project. The discount factor is to be chosen considering both efficiency and
equity (Lind, 1995).
However, it should be noted that there are market failures associated with technological innovations required
to accomplish green growth (Kemp and Never, 2017). This suggests the need for government intervention. An
assessment of the impact of green policies on employment has attracted a great deal of attention among
policymakers and environmental economists. Transformation toward a green economy involves displacement
of labor from low energy to high energy-efficient firms (Fankhaeser et al., 2008). It is, therefore, imperative to
build a policy framework aimed at labor market reforms to avoid any inadvertent effects during the transition
process.
In the wake of the quandary of climate change and fluctuating economic growth, it is crucial to develop green
growth policies that focus on the environment without compromising on economic growth. In this chapter, we
discuss some of the issues related to sustainable development and economic growth. In Sections 2 and 3, we
discuss the widely used notions in environmental economics literature while focusing on intergenerational
tradeoffs. Issues pertaining to ecological economics in a macroeconomic framework are analyzed in Section
4. Section 5 presents the intersection between sustainable development and green growth. Section 6 discusses
the need for green accounting and commonly used measures of green accounting. In Section 7 policies aimed
at attaining green growth and sustainable development are examined. We conclude the chapter in Section 8.
The Unmet Promises of Decoupling and Technological Optimism
In contrast to reembedding of economies in the biophysical world, ecomodernists argue for further
disembedding and abstraction of human economies from their biophysical surroundings. Proponents of
economic growth claim that economic growth can be decoupled from its impacts, such as energy and material
throughput and waste production. If these impacts could be reduced to harmless levels through increased
efficiency, then economic growth would no longer be a problem for the environment. Based on this rationale,
ecomodernists argue that economic growth and environmental protection are compatible rather than at odds
with one another.
These proponents point to empirical observations that in some instances the relationship between per capita
income and environmental pressure followed an inverted U-shaped curve, a correlation known as
the environmental Kuznets curve. This curve was thought to indicate that environmental impact increased
with increasing income (i.e., GDP) up to a certain point, but after that point, increasing income correlated with
declining environmental impact. However, evidence that economic growth leads to improved environmental
quality applies to only certain local, short-term pollutants, but not for stocks of waste or long-term pollutants
such as CO2. Indeed, inverted U-shaped correlations most often model the relationships between a few
specific pollutants and income such as sulfur dioxide and urban air pollution. In many other cases, pollution
increases apace with income levels, and for others N-shaped curves show that increasing income may
correlate with some degree of decreased environmental impact, but then even further increases in income lead
to further throughput and environmental impact. Importantly, carbon emissions tend to increase with income,
and in lockstep with energy consumption. While the environmental Kuznets curve may hold for some issues
such as air pollution, it likely does not hold for many other issues such as climate change and species
extinction. Thus, while the environmental Kuznets curve is evidence that growth correlates with improved
environmental quality in some specific cases, it is not evidence that it will happen in all cases, or quickly
enough to prevent irreversible global harm.
Moreover, this argument fails to address several important limitations. First, the argument does not apply to
the degradation of the environmental resource base—that is, Earth's systems that support life such as land
degradation, climate, ocean acidification, and others. Second, the correlation fails to account for system-wide
impacts such as off-shoring of emissions and the embedded energy and materials used to create and move
imported goods. Third, such correlations say nothing about accumulation of pollutants over time, their
aggregate impact on ecosystems, or irreversible damage. Finally, it is unclear to what degree such correlations
are a result of increased income as opposed to improved environmental regulations. Economic growth may
only result in improved environmental conditions when paired with better policies. Thus, this argument is so
severely limited that it “offers no meaningful promise that economic growth can be de-linked from
environmental impact” (Purdey, 2010, p. 137).
A closely related argument is technological optimism, the faith that humanity can develop ever more efficient
technology so that increases in efficiency will effectively decouple growth from environmental impacts.
Efficient use of energy and materials is undeniably important, but techno-optimists often fail to distinguish
between relative and absolute decoupling. Relative decoupling refers to efficiency gains per unit GDP, while
absolute decoupling is a reduction in the total human impacts on Earth's systems. For efficiency gains to have
the promised effect, they must result in not only relative, but also absolute decoupling. But as Victor
(2008) shows, absolute decoupling becomes extremely difficult with continued economic growth. Relying on
improvements in technological efficiencies alone, without addressing continuing economic growth, efficiency
gains have to reduce per capita impacts more than increases caused by economic and population growth
combined.
This is not a mere technicality. As Jackson (2009) shows, while there is evidence for relative decoupling in
some sectors, absolute decoupling has not occurred because efficiency gains have been insufficient to counter
increases in population and per capita GDP. Moreover, in many instances greater efficiencies do not lead to
reduced overall impact since efficiency gains are offset by greater overall production and consumption. This
counterintuitive result, called Jevons Paradox, is based on observations that improvements in efficiency are
often associated with increased use of energy or resources. Relative decoupling occurs, but without absolute
decoupling. Thus, while technological innovations and greater efficiencies are crucially important, the ever-
increasing production and consumption of growth must also be addressed.

 Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given
area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by
its total population. Per capita income is national income divided by population size.
 An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of
their environment, interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together
through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the system through photosynthesis and is
incorporated into plant tissue.
 Changing or using natural resources will affect the entire ecosystem, since an imbalance in the system
is created. Ecosystems naturally change with time. In most cases, the change does not completely destroy
the ecosystem, because a new, slightly different ecosystem can be created with the natural resources that
are currently in place.
 Natural resources may be classified in different ways. Natural resources are materials and
components (something that can be used) that can be found within the environment. Every man-made
product is composed of natural resources (at its fundamental level).