Preview Report Also
Spotlights Opportunities for Transforming
Water and Transport Sectors as Governments
Meet for Rio+20 Preparatory Committee
New York, 17 May 2010-Investing around US$8
billion a year in rebuilding and greening
the world's fisheries could raise catches
to 112 million
tonnes annually while triggering benefits
to industry, consumers and the global economy
totalling US$1.7 trillion over the next
40 years.
These are among the
findings of a new, landmark report being
compiled by the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) and economists entitled
the Green Economy- part of which was previewed
today in New York.
The investment, some
of which can be covered by phasing down
or phasing out some of the US$27 billion-worth
of fishing subsides currently in place,
is needed to dramatically reduce the excess
capacity of the world's fishing fleets while
supporting workers in alternative livelihoods.
Funding is also required
to reform and re-focus fisheries management,
including through policies such as tradable
quotas and the establishment of Marine Protected
Areas, in order to allow depleted stocks
to recover and grow.
Such measures, backed
up by bold and forward-looking investments,
would not only generate important economic
and environmental returns. They would also
assist in fighting poverty by securing a
primary source of protein for close to one
billion people.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary
General and UNEP Executive Director, said
today: "Fisheries across the world
are being plundered, or exploited at unsustainable
rates. It is a failure of management of
what will prove to be monumental proportions
unless addressed."
"The lives and
livelihoods of over half a billion people,
linked with the health of this industry,
will depend on the tough but also transformational
choices Governments make now and over the
years to come," he added.
"The Green Economy
preview report presented today offers a
way of maximizing the economic, social and
environmental returns from rebuilding, reforming
and sustaining fisheries for current and
future generations. The scenarios recognize
that millions of fishers will need support
in retraining and that fishing fleets must
shrink. But this needs to be set against
a rise in catches, an overall climb in incomes
for coastal communities and companies, improvements
in the health of the marine environment
and ultimately hundreds of millions of people
whose incomes and livelihoods are linked
to fishing," he added.
The final Green Economy
report, which will cover 11 sectors from
agriculture and waste to cities and tourism,
will be published in late 2010. Today's
preview, launched during the meeting of
the Preparatory Committee for the Rio+20
meeting in Brazil in 2012, covers marine
fisheries, water and transport.
Fisheries-Facts and
Figures
It is estimated that
there are currently 35 million fishers and
more than 20 million boats actively engaged
in fishing.
Fisheries directly and
indirectly support 170 million jobs and
US$35 billion in incomes to fishing households
annually.
If post-fishing activities
are factored in, along with an assumption
that one fisher has three dependents, then
about 520 million people or eight per cent
of the global population are supported by
fisheries.
Mismanagement, lack
of enforcement and subsidies totalling over
US$27 billion annually have left close to
30 per cent of fish stocks classed as "collapsed"-in
other words yielding less than 10 per cent
of their former potential.
Only around 25 per cent
of commercial stocks-mostly of low-priced
species-are considered to be in a healthy
or reasonably healthy state.
On current trends, some
researchers estimate that virtually all
commercial fisheries will have collapsed
by 2050 unless urgent action is taken to
bring far more intelligent management to
fisheries north and south.
The report estimates
that of the US$27 billion-worth of subsidies,
only around US$8 billion can be classed
as 'good' with the rest classed as 'bad'
and 'ugly' as they contribute to over-exploitation
of stocks.
Fisheries-A Green Economy
Strategy
Under a Green Economy
response, aimed at reducing the global fishing
effort to a 'maximum sustainable yield',
an estimated reduction of excess capacity
is required, because current capacity is
1.8 to 2.8 times what is needed.
These reductions could
be achieved through careful targeting of
the most ecologically damaging surplus capacity,
so that of the estimated 20 million vessels
and 35 million fishers deployed in this
sector, the livelihoods of those that are
artisanal and poor are treated equitably.
The report estimates
that an investment of between US$220 to
US$320 billion world-wide is required and
equal to around US$8 billion a year but
that this investment would:-
Raise total income of
fishing households, including those engaged
in artisanal fishing, from US$35 billion
to around US$44 billion a year;
Increase annual profits
for fishing enterprises from US$8 billion
to US$11 billion annually;
Increase the marine
fisheries catch from about 80 million tonnes
to 112 million tonnes a year worth US$119
billion annually versus the current US$85
billion.
"Discounting this
flow of benefit over time at three per cent
and five per cent real discount rates, gives
a present value of benefit from greening
the fishing sector of US$1.05 trillion and
US$1.76 trillion, which is three to five
times the high-end estimate of US$320 billion
as the cost of greening global fisheries,"
says the preview report.
Water-Facts and Figures
'Global water stocks
are in decline and demands on them are growing.
Water scarcity is becoming a global phenomenon
that will challenge the security of nations.
Addressing this gap provides an opportunity
for investments and for water to become
a major economic sector in a Green Economy,"
says the preview report.
Water supply is expected
to be 40 per cent less than what will be
needed in terms of demand by 2030 if there
are no improvements in the efficiency of
water use.
It argues that attaining
the Millennium Development Goals as they
relate to water and sanitation would lead
to global economic gains of nearly US$1000
million a year as a result of less working
days lost to illness among adults.
Improved access to water
and sanitation would also lead to global
gains of US$64 billion linked to less time
spent accessing such services.
Investments are needed
in not only increasing supply through low
cost measures such as rainwater harvesting
but also through reforms of the sector and
investments in ecological infrastructure
including forests and wetlands that perform
important hydrological functions.
The report cites an
innovative policy and 'micro-infrastructure'
development in Western Jakarta, Indonesia.
Here, a private utility
called Palyja is providing water to informal
homes via community-based organizations
with water connection support from the NGO
MercyCorps and USAID's Environmental Service
Programme.
The community signs
a supply contract with the water company
which in turn supplies water to multiple
households via a single community metre
at discount prices.
"The community
gets reliable access to an affordable water
supply, while Palyja supplies a large number
of houses with water at much lower overhead
and administrative costs," says the
Green Economy preview report.
Green Economy-Transport
The environmental, social
and economic impacts of transport can amount
to around 10 per cent of a country's GDP,
according to the preview report.
Transport currently
consumes more than half of global liquid
fossil fuels;
Transport emits nearly
a quarter of the world's energy related
CO2 and generates more than 80 per cent
of developing country cities' local air
pollutants;
More than 127 million
fatal traffic accidents, mainly in developing
countries, are linked with transport;
Chronic congestion is
resulting in time and productivity losses.
Unless urgent action
is taken to seize a different development
and investment path, these costs will grow
as the global vehicle fleet climbs from
around 800 million to between two and three
billion by 2050.
The report cites multiple
choices countries and cities can make, including
investment in public and non-motorized transport;
alternative fuels and a substitution of
physical transportation with telecommunications
technology.
The Green Economy report
says the stimulus packages, triggered by
the financial crisis of 2008-2009, have
begun a shift towards green transport.
Transport is one of
the major recipients of this extra spending
amounting to roughly 12 per cent of the
just under US$3.2 trillion spent by all
surveyed Governments.
Of this, rail and public
transport represent 45 per cent; low carbon
vehicles, five per cent; roads 33 per cent
and airports, 14 per cent-in other words
50 per cent of the global transport stimulus
spending could be termed 'green'.
"Funding for non-motorized
transport such as sidewalks and bicycles
is explicitly mentioned in the stimulus
packages of the Republic of Korea and Norway,"
says the preview report.
Notes to Editors
The Green Economy preview
report, including draft conclusions from
the full report to be published later in
the year, builds on the Global Green New
Deal/Green Economy Initiative launched in
2008.
The preview report is
a contribution to the Rio+20 Preparatory
Committee meeting taking place at the UN
Headquarters in New York 17-19 May 2010.
The preview report can be accessed at www.unep.org/greeneconomy
