As executive director of the United Nations Environment programme (UNEP), Achim Steiner has been at the forefront of international conferences on environment and sustainable development, including the Rio+20 conference in June 2012. SciDev.Net caught up with him at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS) in February to discuss the role of science in the post-2015 agenda, and meeting sustainable development goals (SDGs). Steiner also discusses the progress on SDGs and plans to help developing countries achieve them. How do you see the role of science and technology in the post-2015 agenda? I think, even more central and significant than in the past. Science allows us to understand the nature of environmental change and also the opportunities for addressing it. Science has allowed us to better appreciate the scale and nature of change that one must manage, in the climate change arena, or food security, or fish stocks in the ocean. Science is also the frontier that allows us to develop new technologies and new management systems. In work of the UNEP, science has allowed us to identify short-lived climate pollutants, black carbon pollution, air pollution, or troposphere ozone, and methane; both as human health issues and also as major global warming drivers. How can science contribute specifically to SDGs? We do not yet know what those goals may look like. But we do know the areas in which the world has to come together through the principles of universality and integration. Take, for instance, agriculture. Many argue that we must produce 70 per cent more food by 2050 to feed the world population. So, we are looking at the science of soil fertility, and of waters. Developing the agricultural economy along the lines of last 100 years, and adding another 70 per cent of food production is not viable, sustainable, or doable. We also need to look at how technology can reduce food losses. One-third of what we produce is lost between the farm and the final point of consumption, either because of absence of storage facilities, or because of pests or losses during transport. So, if have a goal relating to food security, science and technology can help address reducing food losses and develop more sustainable production techniques...... scidev.net/south-asia/sustainability/feature/q-a-unep-s-achim-steiner-on-the-green-economy.html
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:54:57 +0000
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