NZ in an Unsustainable Economy

For New Zealand to become a sustainable society, we need to understand the global problem that humanity faces, our country’s place in that, and its role in the global solution.

The sustainability problem is an imbalance between human numbers and the planet’s carrying capacity. The human population has grown from 1 billion in 1804 to 6.7 b. today, and is projected to reach 9 b. by 2050 before levelling off. Humanity’s current ecological footprint (2.2 hectares per person) exceeds the bio-productive land available (1.8 ha. pp). Those of us alive today are drawing down on the planet’s natural resource base, reducing the possibility of our children and future gerenations meeting their legitimate needs.

The precautionary principle, agreed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 (which I attended), makes it clear that we cannot rely on techologiccal invention to meet our human needs. The stakes of survival are too high to whistle our way into the future. In the rich ‘North’ we have to change to a less materialistic lifestyle, and in the poorer ‘South’ we have to develop our national economies there on a cleaner, more energy-efficient basis.

New Zealand’s population is only one-twentieth of 1% of the global population. The fate of the Earth will be largely decided by the eleven countries that are over 100 million each, comprising 61% of humanity. That does not, however, absolve us of our proportionate responsibility for humanity’s plight.

New Zealand’s ecological footprint, at 6 ha pp., is 9th largest in the world. Because of our natural resource assets and our sparse population (15 persons per. sq. km., three times less than the global average), we are relatively well off – one of the very few countries with a national ecological surplus.

But it is illusory to conclude that we are invulnerable to the global challenge of sustainability. We have a moral obligation and a vital political interest to reduce our consumption levels and make our productive activity more sustainable.