Joint Project with Environmental Studies Group in Japan; Meeting Will Consider Alternative Policy Options for Global Action
NEW YORK, 17 October (United Nations University) -- The United Nations University (UNU) and the National Institute for Environmental Studies of Japan are the organizers of a Conference on the Sustainable Future of the Global System taking place this week at the University's headquarters in Tokyo. The three-day Conference, which concludes tomorrow, is the first forum to be organized as part of the University's continuing research and dissemination efforts in the field of eco-structuring for sustainable development.
The organizers have noted that the interface of population growth and economic development, in the context of the large-scale transitions facing today's world, must be the central issue in any programme of eco-structuring. Current population growth rates, taken with the impact of prevailing technologies, together with the need for accelerating economic growth -- particularly in the developing countries -- are not easily reconciled with environmental preservation or with "sustainable development." The long-term survival of the earth as a habitable planet, it is said, hinges on the adoption and determined implementation of a major shift in techno-economic trends, and a solution to the population problem.
The United Nations University Conference on the Sustainable Future of the Global System is being held to articulate the concept of sustainable development, and to seek to identify alternative policy options necessary for the achievement of global sustainable development. Sustainable development implies more than global warming, the Conference organizers assert. Global warming scenarios in themselves carry a hierarchy of assumptions, including population growth, energy resources, land use patterns, gross national product (GNP) projections, and other critical issues.
The goal of UNU in convening such a forum is to facilitate more collective efforts to achieve the objectives of global sustainable development. The Conference has been arranged with four sessions to deal with future scenarios of the global system; key issues in eco-restructuring for sustainable development; eco-restructuring for sustainable development in Asia, and sustainable development.
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