Human progress needs to be considered with environmental protection: UNDP

 The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has underscored the need for redefining human progress that takes into account countries’ carbon dioxide emissions and material footprint on top of traditionally used parameters of human development.

Unveiling the Global Human Development Report (HDR) 2020 today, the UNDP has expressed its concern over widening inequality and environmental challenges that the world is facing while moving forward to achieve human progress. The Covid-19 pandemic is the latest crisis facing the world, but unless humans release their grip on nature, it won’t be the last, according to the report.

“Humans wield more power over the planet than ever before,” UNDP administrator Achim Steiner said, adding that in the wake of Covid-19, record-breaking temperatures and spiraling inequality, it is time to use that power to redefine what is meant by progress, where the carbon and consumption footprints are no longer hidden.

Till the date, the Human Development Index (HDI) considers a nation’s health, education, and standards of living to mark as human progress. But the additional elements – a country’s carbon dioxide emissions and its material footprint – shows how the global development landscape would change if both the wellbeing of people and also the planet were central to defining humanity’s progress.

Currently, the Covid-19 has grappled the world. This has led to more than 50 countries dropping out of the very high human development group, reflecting their dependence on fossil fuels and material footprint. “This shows that no country in the world has yet achieved very high human development without putting immense strain on the planet,” the report reads.

The UNDP has mentioned that it has been projected by 2100, the poorest countries in the world could experience up to 100 more days of extreme weather due to climate change each year, a number that could be cut in half if the Paris Agreement on climate change is fully implemented. “And yet fossil fuels are still being subsidized: the full cost to societies of publicly financed subsidies for fossil fuels – including indirect costs – is estimated at over $5 trillion a year, or 6.5 per cent of global GDP,” the UNDP cited a report published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Global Human Development Report is a flagship publication of the UNDP. Minister for Foreign Affairs Pradeep Kumar Gyawali launched the report in Nepal, amid a programme.

“For three decades, Human Development Reports have fundamentally shaped the ideas and policy discourse on alternative assessment of development and wellbeing,” he said, awhile launching the report in Kathmandu. “The criteria used for measuring human development have been the basis for advancing social development agenda, including in Nepal,” he said, adding that the contents of the HDR reports have served as useful policy resources for many countries. “Successive human development reports since 1990 have highlighted critical dimensions of human progress and sustainable development, thereby informing, encouraging and assisting the governments and stakeholders to address the impediments in the way of enlarging choices.”

“Nepal strongly supports the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the call to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees,” he said thanking Resident Representative of UNDP in Nepal Ayshanie Labe for the launching ceremony.

Reminding Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli’s address at the climate ambition summit, where he outlined the roadmap for Nepal’s ambition towards a net-zero greenhouse gas emission by 2050, Gyawali said that Nepal submitted it’s updated, more ambitious and progressive Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC-2020). “Nepal has prioritised producing clean and renewable energy as well as promoting e-mobility, low carbon infrastructure and ecotourism.”

By 2030, Nepal aims to maintain 45 per cent of the country’s land under forest cover and aims to extend protected area from 23 per cent to 30 per cent and preserve biodiversity. 

While implementing the NDC, Nepal remains committed to prioritise the issue of gender equality and social inclusion and ensure full, equal and meaningful participation of women, children, youth, indigenous peoples and marginalized communities in all stages of the implementation process.