IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/b/hdr/report/hdr2007-2008.html
   My bibliography  Save this book

HDR 2007/2008 - Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world

Author

Listed:
  • UNDP

    (Human Development Report Office (HDRO) United Nations Development Programme (UNDP))

Abstract

Climate change is the defining human development challenge of the 21st Century. Failure to respond to that challenge will stall and then reverse international efforts to reduce poverty. The poorest countries and most vulnerable citizens will suffer the earliest and most damaging setbacks, even though they have contributed least to the problem. Looking to the future, no country—however wealthy or powerful—will be immune to the impact of global warming. The Human Development Report 2007/2008 shows that climate change is not just a future scenario. Increased exposure to droughts, floods and storms is already destroying opportunity and reinforcing inequality. Meanwhile, there is now overwhelming scientific evidence that the world is moving towards the point at which irreversible ecological catastrophe becomes unavoidable. Business-as-usual climate change points in a clear direction: unprecedented reversal in human development in our lifetime, and acute risks for our children and their grandchildren. There is a window of opportunity for avoiding the most damaging climate change impacts, but that window is closing: the world has less than a decade to change course. Actions taken—or not taken—in the years ahead will have a profound bearing on the future course of human development. The world lacks neither the financial resources nor the technological capabilities to act. What is missing is a sense of urgency, human solidarity and collective interest. As the Human Development Report 2007/2008 argues, climate change poses challenges at many levels. In a divided but ecologically interdependent world, it challenges all people to reflect upon how we manage the environment of the one thing that we share in common: planet Earth. It challenges us to reflect on social justice and human rights across countries and generations. It challenges political leaders and people in rich nations to acknowledge their historic responsibility for the problem, and to initiate deep and early cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Above all, it challenges the entire human community to undertake prompt and strong collective action based on shared values and a shared vision.

Suggested Citation

  • Undp, 2007. "HDR 2007/2008 - Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world," Human Development Report (1990 to present), Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), number hdr2007-2008, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:hdr:report:hdr2007-2008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007-2008/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sopian, Kamaruzzaman & Ali, Baharuddin & Asim, Nilofar, 2011. "Strategies for renewable energy applications in the organization of Islamic conference (OIC) countries," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(9), pages 4706-4725.
    2. Independent Evaluation Group, 2009. "Climate Change and the World Bank Group : Phase One - An Evaluation of World Bank Win-Win Energy Policy Reforms," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2639, December.
    3. Lere Amusan & Oluwole Olutola, 2016. "Addressing Climate Change in Southern Africa: Any Role for South Africa in the Post-Paris Agreement?," India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs, , vol. 72(4), pages 395-409, December.
    4. Prata, Ndola & Sreenivas, Amita & Greig, Fiona & Walsh, Julia & Potts, Malcolm, 2010. "Setting priorities for safe motherhood interventions in resource-scarce settings," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 1-13, January.
    5. Unesco Unesco, 2015. "Water for a Sustainable World," Working Papers id:6657, eSocialSciences.
    6. Juan C. Ciscar & Daniele Paci & Lucia Vergano, 2010. "Issues on the Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change," Chapters, in: Emilio Cerdá Tena & Xavier Labandeira (ed.), Climate Change Policies, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Musakwa Mercy T. & Odhiambo Nicholas M., 2022. "Energy Consumption and Human Development in South Africa: Empirical Evidence from Disaggregated Data," Studia Universitatis „Vasile Goldis” Arad – Economics Series, Sciendo, vol. 32(2), pages 1-23, June.
    8. Pradosh Nath & Bhagirath Behera, 2011. "A critical review of impact of and adaptation to climate change in developed and developing economies," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 141-162, February.
    9. Verbruggen, Aviel, 2013. "Revocability and reversibility in societal decision-making," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 20-27.
    10. Bowen, Alex & Cochrane, Sarah & Fankhauser, Samuel, 2012. "Climate change, adaptation and economic growth," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 39939, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Gari, Sirak R. & Newton, Alice & Icely, John & Lowe, Christopher D., 2014. "Testing the application of the Systems Approach Framework (SAF) for the management of eutrophication in the Ria Formosa," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 40-45.
    12. Dorte Verner, 2011. "Social Implications of Climate Change in Latin America and the Caribbean," World Bank Publications - Reports 10084, The World Bank Group.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    human development; climate change; sustainable development; global warming; CO2; climate forecasting; risk; vulnerability; inequality; social justice; inter-generational equity; ecological disaster; solidarity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A0 - General Economics and Teaching - - General
    • B4 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology
    • C0 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - General
    • C5 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling
    • D0 - Microeconomics - - General
    • E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General
    • F0 - International Economics - - General
    • G0 - Financial Economics - - General
    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • I0 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General
    • K0 - Law and Economics - - General
    • L0 - Industrial Organization - - General
    • L3 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O2 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy
    • O5 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies
    • Q0 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General
    • R0 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General
    • Y1 - Miscellaneous Categories - - Data: Tables and Charts
    • Y8 - Miscellaneous Categories - - Related Disciplines
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hdr:report:hdr2007-2008. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: HDRO/UNDP (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hdundus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.