Economic growth and environmental protection go together

AT the launch of the World Environment Day in 2014, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced: “Planet Earth is our shared island, let us join forces to protect it.” Every year World Environment Day serves as the people's day for doing something positive for the environment, galvanising individual action into a collective power that generates an exponential positive impact on the planet.
Air pollution has now become a major killer with three million people dying of it every year, and carbon emission has doubled in three decades. In the water front, according to the United Nations projection, 2.7 billion people will face severe water shortages by 2025 if consumption continues at current rates. Added to this is the problem of contaminated water that kills 2.2 million every year.
In Bangladesh, in spite of the fact that we have 4m hectares of inland water support area, water crisis has been building up because of declining availability during lean period. Water quality degradation, especially of surface water due to poor sanitation, industrial effluents and pesticide run off; arsenic contamination of ground water and poor surface water quality have put the country in a critical situation. Water scarcity is directly linked to human activities that run counter to sustainable development. Arguably, agriculture accounts for two thirds of the fresh water consumed.
The Johannesburg summit endorsed a proposal that envisages “more crop per drop” approach. It calls for more efficient irrigation techniques, planting of drought and salt- tolerant crop varieties and better monitoring of soil humidity levels. Improving water delivery system would also help reducing the amount that is lost en route to the people who use it. The programme it envisages is WASH -- water, sanitation and hygiene -- for all, a global effort that aims to provide water service and hygiene training to everyone who lacks them by 2015. Though worldwide population growth has eased, the growth is still horrific in poor Asian countries.
In Asia and Africa, infectious diseases such as AIDS, malaria, cholera and tuberculosis are feeling the Malthusian effect. Rural land degradation is pushing people into cities, where crowded and polluted living conditions create the perfect grounds for sickness. To make WASH programme a success, women must be provided with basic education and job training. In our country as well as in most other places in Asia, we have hardly made any headway in this sector. Educated mothers not only have a stepladder out of poverty,  but they also choose to have fewer babies. Moreover, any development effort aimed at improving the environment worldwide will require healthcare for the young since there are more than 1 billion people aged 15-24.
The West has noticed but blatantly ignored that up to a third of the world is in danger of starving. Two billion people lack reliable access to safe nutritious food and 800 million -- including 300 million children -- are chronically malnourished. Beset with agricultural failure, fragile ecosystem, erratic weather and other factors, Bangladesh now faces serious problem in feeding its people. Because of dismal poverty and population boom, land clearing for agriculture principally through shifting cultivation in the hill forest areas goes apace. Forests are being destroyed by logging, mostly illegal.
The amounts of crops, animals, bio-matter that we extract each year from the earth inhabited by 6.1 billon people exceeds what the planet can replace by an estimated 20%. Experts have opined that it takes 14.4 months to replenish what we use in 12 months, indicating a deficit spending of the worst kind.
Sustainable development means equitable distribution of wealth and opportunities. It is an exceptional opportunity economically to build markets and create  jobs; socially, to bring people in from the margins; and politically, to reduce tensions over resource that could lead to violence, and to give every man and woman a voice and choice in deciding their own lives, but not at the expense of future generations.
It is high time that societies throughout the world work in a way to ensure that economic growth and environmental protection go together, and not be at odds. We can't think of development alone in total disregard of the environment. Prosperity built on the despoliation of natural environment is no prosperity at all, only a temporary reprieve from some immediate disaster.
Energy needs and climate are likely to bedevil all developmental programmes in future. Surely, all development efforts start with putting in the electric plug. About 2.5 billion people have no access to modern energy services, and the power demands of developing countries are expected to grow by 25% per year. But if those demands are met by burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and gas, more and more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will hit the atmosphere. For sustainable development to occur, the world must go for exploiting solar and wind energy on a mass scale.

The writer is a columnist of The Daily Star.
E-mail: aukhandk@gmail.com