The year 2015 will be punctuated by a flurry of major international conferences. Three of these conferences are of great importance: the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, which will be held in June in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; the United Nations (UN) General Assembly will meet in September to endorse a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); and countries will be meeting in Paris in December in anticipation of a Global Climate Agreement. These conferences aim to craft a new post-2015 global development agenda.
Tipping Scales: Overstepping Boundaries
There is however one underlying characteristic of the challenges being addressed by the above conferences: human actions are the main drivers of these challenges, mainly caused by environmental change. So profound are these actions that scientists have noted that humankind is ushering in a new epoch, the Anthropocene.
This fundamental shift from the Holocene – which lasted 11,700 million years – has been framed by scientists within a framework of planetary boundaries: stratospheric ozone depletion; loss of biosphere integrity (biodiversity loss and extinctions); chemical pollution and the release of novel entities; climate change; ocean acidification; freshwater consumption and the global hydrological cycle; land system change; nitrogen and phosphorus flows to the biosphere and oceans; and atmospheric aerosol loading.
Humankind has ‘overstepped’ three of these planetary boundaries of climate change, biodiversity loss and nitrogen cycle. Further, it has been noted by scientists that crossing these boundaries will imperil human civilization, as we know it.
A Poignant Example
But a poignant example would provide a clearer peek into the Anthropocene. Anthropogenic climate change has been identified as one of the biggest challenges to human development. Since the Industrial Revolution, the burning of fossil fuels such as coal has led to the release of unprecedented amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, leading to global warming. Further, global warming is altering ecological balances, ad is chiefly responsible for climate change.
Thus, it is no surprise that climate change has risen steadily to the top of global political agenda. In 2009, world leaders, including the then newly elected US President Barack Obama failed to reach a much anticipated global climate agreement in Copenhagen, Denmark, in a much anticipated conference.
Since the Copenhagen debacle, countries have renewed their efforts to reach a global climate agreement, largely thanks to civil society pressure. In September 2014, during a special UN Climate Summit, hundreds of thousands of people marched in the streets of New York, and in other major cities in the world, under the banner of the People’s Climate March. The Fossil Free Movement is pushing for companies, institutions and governments to disengage from financial investment portfolios with fossil fuel companies; the first global divestment day was held in February 13-14, 2015.
Anthropocentric Solutions
Given that humankind is responsible for the Anthropocene, then solutions to address these challenges have to come from humankind. There have been calls for a fundamental shifts to address these challenges, such as completely retrofitting economic models and powering economies using clean energy and embracing sustainable production and consumption among others.
Thus, the Anthropocene will be a test for humankind to define how civilisation will unfold, for better or worse.
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