UN News reports, Nations must start weighing up the cost of economic profit against damage to the environment if they are to have a chance at a sustainable future, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday.
The global economy increased almost fivefold in the past fifty years, but that growth was at a massive cost to the environment.
“Nature’s resources still do not figure in countries’ calculations of wealth. The current system is weighted towards destruction, not preservation”, he said.
“The bottom line … is that we need to transform how we view and value nature. We must reflect nature’s true value in all our policies, plans and economic systems”, Mr. Guterres urged, adding that by doing so, investment can be directed into actions that protect and restore nature.
Nature’s resources still do not figure in countries’ calculations of wealth. The current system is weighted towards destruction, not preservation”, he said.
“The bottom line … is that we need to transform how we view and value nature. We must reflect nature’s true value in all our policies, plans and economic systems”, Mr. Guterres urged, adding that by doing so, investment can be directed into actions that protect and restore nature.
The call by the Secretary-General comes as countries convened at the UN Statistical Commission are set to deliberate a new statistical framework to measure economic prosperity and human well-being, which includes the contributions of nature.
The framework, called the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting, goes beyond the commonly used statistic of gross domestic product (GDP), and ensures that natural capital, such as forests, oceans and other ecosystems, are factored in economic reporting.
“We’ve treated nature as if it were free and as if it were limitless. So, we have been degrading nature and using it up without really being aware of what we were doing and how much we were losing in the process,” Elliott Harris, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development and UN Chief Economist, said.
