Page 58 - Respond 2018 Magazine

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Defining moment:

How we are raising our

ambition for a healthier

environment

Despite grave threats, development in harmony with the planet is within grasp.

By Naoko Ishii, chief executive officer and chairperson, Global Environment Facility

We stand at a defining moment for the future of the planet With its unique mandate across multiple multilateral
and human well-being. Our global commons –the land, environmental agreements – and its financing, holistic
seas and atmosphere we share, and the ecosystems they approach and wide network of partners – the Global
host – are under severe threat from ever more powerful Environment Facility is particularly well placed to help
human activities. catalyze the required transformation.

Several planetary boundaries, within which human society Established on the eve of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the
has become established and thrives, have already been Facility was set up to help tackle our planet’s most pressing
transgressed as we have taken the global commons environmental problems.
for granted. On this trajectory, the threat – not just to
the environment but to global aspirations for economic Its strong, diverse, and expanding network of partners
growth, prosperity, jobs and security – risks escalating out includes 183 governments, together with civil society
of control. organizations, academia and private companies, as well as
its implementing and executing agencies.
Business as usual will guarantee disaster. Incremental change
will not suffice to avoid it: the challenge is just too great for Since its inception, it has accumulated a vast body of
that. The only solution is transformational, systems change. experience and knowledge. It has a key role in bringing
together multiple stakeholders and in catalyzing the private
To get on the right path to a better, safer future, we need to sector to form sustainable partnerships. And it has also
work together on common and systemic solutions, and to always been ready to innovate.
address the drivers of environmental degradation.
But the uncomfortable truth is that we, like the rest of the
Three global megatrends will lead to further major international community, are failing to reverse the sharp
degradation of the global environment under a business as downward trend in the global environment. We have won
usual scenario: a growing population, which will exceed nine battles, but the war is still being lost. There have been
billion by 2050; a rapidly rising global middle class resulting many good initiatives, but the Facility’s projects, too often
in a tectonic shift in consumption and diet patterns; and fragmented and isolated, have come up short in shifting
rapid urbanization which is expected to add one billion new the needle in the right direction, let alone in bringing about
residents to the world’s cities. transformational change.

To “de-couple” the impact of these megatrends, we must It’s increasingly clear that the Facility cannot afford to stand
fundamentally transform our key economic systems. We still. In the face of the scale and the urgency of the threats
need to change the systems that support how we live, how facing the planet, the emerging global momentum for change,
we eat, how we move and how we produce and consume. In and the evolving global financial landscape, the Facility needs
other words, four revolutionary shifts in social and economic to seize opportunities to make a bigger difference.
life are needed: transforming cities, re-thinking food and
agriculture, decarbonizing energy systems, and investing in It is high time for the Facility to change and – with the full
the circular economy. support of its Council – it is doing so. Three years ago, the
Council agreed on the GEF2020, the organization’s first- ever