Environment lobby's high hopes fall back to earth

When, on 3 June 1992, The Independent devoted its front page to the global environmental crisis, we did so in order to highlight the hopes and fears surrounding the UN Earth Summit on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, which began that morning.

In just under three weeks from now, world leaders gather in New York for a follow-up meeting. Once again they will call for global partnership to tackle the problems and express their deep concern about the threats to natural resources and the planet's life-support systems.

Today, we re-examine the same key environment and development data we looked at five years ago, looking at what has happened since Rio. We also add another issue, the use of fresh water, because it has since become clear that huge dangers lie ahead in this area.

Again, we compare the latest figures with the situation in 1972 when the global environmental crisis first came to attention in the Western world.

In June of that year, the first earth summit, the UN Conference on the Human Environment, was held in Stockholm. In the couple of years leading up to that event, problems of pollution, population growth, species extinction and depletion of natural resources had received abundant television and press coverage. So how then, in the intervening quarter century, have we fared in putting right our relationship with nature?

We've done badly - up to Rio and afterwards. Since 1992, most of the trends that matter most have carried on worsening. For instance, nations rich and poor have done next to nothing about tackling global warming, despite more than 100 presidents and prime ministers signing a climate protection treaty in Brazil.

There are, however, some grounds for hope. Population growth is slowing down more rapidly than UN demographers were forecasting back in 1992. That is mainly because parents in developing countries are deciding to have smaller families, but it is also due to death rates climbing in some nations such as Iraq, Burundi and Rwanda.

The UN's best estimate for the earth's population in 2050 is now 9.4 billion, compared to its estimate of 10 billion, made in 1994,

Global spending on armaments has fallen sharply since the Earth Summit, which allows governments to spend more on environmental protection - if they choose to. The growth of nuclear power has slowed sharply and may soon end altogether, with governments losing their enthusiasm for pursuing this energy option. Advocates of nuclear power point out that reactors, unlike fossil-fuel power stations, do not produce climate-changing greenhouse gases. But a turning away from atomic energy would probably be a gain for the causes of environment and economic development. It is expensive, there are problems in disposing of nuclear waste safely, and also risks of nuclear weapons proliferation.

For developing countries, the single greatest disappointment since Rio has been the sharp decline in official foreign aid from the industrialised nations. When they met in Brazil, the rich world - with the exception of the US - reaffirmed its commitment to the UN target of devoting 0.7 per cent of its gross national product to Third World development. At the time, they were giving 0.34 per cent; by 1995 that had fallen to just 0.27 per cent. Britain's own foreign aid has fallen roughly in line with this global trend, but not quite as sharply. Worldwide, more and more of this aid is also being devoted to the aftermath of natural disasters, refugee crises and famines, rather than the kind of long-term projects needed to lift people out of perpetual poverty.

Over roughly the same period, there has been a huge increase in private sector cash investment in the developing world. Last year, according to the World Bank, this cash injection amounted to $244bn (pounds 150bn) - about six times the money that poor countries were getting from the taxpayers of the West in development aid.

However, three-quarters of this investment went to just 12 nations, with China, Mexico, Brazil and Malaysia heading the list. The investment, and the economic growth which goes with it, are a double-edged sword as far as the environment is concerned. As countries industrialise and become more affluent, the damage they to their local environment and the global atmosphere rises. Yet their rising wealth can also give them the resources to deal with the problems.

The prognosis for the earth is the same as it was in 1992, not yet a dying planet, but one which is becoming increasingly sick. If the problems are not tackled soon, in a few decades or less they will impose massive costs in terms of money, insecurity and ill health.