Throughout the world, cultivable areas are barely expanding anymore, and a substantial portion of existing agricultural land is losing fertility. Grasslands have been overgrazed and fisheries overharvested. Water bodies have suffered extensive depletion and pollution, severely restricting food production.

About Statistics

According to the Human Development Report 2016 of the United Nations Development Programme, 663 million people in developing countries have no access to safe water and 2.4 billion have no access to sanitation, resulting in the death of more than three million children every year. 

• Natural forests — which help stabilize climate, moderate water supplies, and harbour a majority of the planet’s biodiversity on land— are being cut down and people are being displaced.
• Biodiversity Loss continues due to the destruction of habitat in areas which are rich in species.
• Threat of Ozone Depletion: A steady decline in a total amount of ozone in Earth’s stratosphere (commonly referred to as ozone hole) poses a real danger to ecosystems and human health. 
• Coastal Pollution too is increasing globally. Although the open sea is relatively clean, coastal waters are Politics in forests, politics in water, and politics in atmosphere. (Refer to Figure 14.5)

UNCED and Sustainable Development

United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992. This was also called Earth Summit. The summit was attended by 170 states, thousands of NGOs, and many multinational corporations.

• Five years earlier, the 1987 Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, had warned that traditional patterns of economic growth were not sustainable in the long term
• Rio Summit produced conventions dealing with climate change, biodiversity, and forestry, and recommended a list of development practices called ‘Agenda 21’. 
• Sustainable Development: There was a consensus on combining economic growth with ecological responsibility.
  • This approach to development is commonly known as ‘sustainable development’.

The Protection of Global Commons

Local Commons: ‘Commons’ are those resources that are not owned by anyone but rather shared by a community. This could be a ‘common room’, a ‘community center’, a park or a river.

• Global Commons: Similarly, there are some areas or regions of the world which are located outside the sovereign jurisdiction of any one state, and therefore require common governance by the international community. These are known as res communis humanitatis or global commons. They include the Earth’s atmosphere, the ocean floor, and outer space.
•  International Cooperation: There have been many path-breaking agreements such as the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, the 1987 Montreal Protocol, and the 1991 Antarctic Environmental Protocol are some of the cooperation over global commons. ( Refer to Figure 14.6)
• Obstacles in managing Global Common: The history of outer space as a global common shows that the management of these areas is thoroughly influenced by North-South inequalities.

Common but Differentiated Responsibilities

Equal Responsibility for All: The developed countries of North want to discuss environmental issues as it stands now and want everyone to be equally responsible for ecological conservation.

• Historical Responsibility of Developed Nations: Developing countries of the South feel that much of ecological degradation in the world is a product of industrial development undertaken by developed countries. 
  • If they have caused more degradation, they must also take more responsibility for undoing damage now.
• Rio Declaration: Rio Declaration at Earth Summit in 1992 laid the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’. The relevant part of the Rio Declaration says that “States shall cooperate in a spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore health and integrity of Earth’s ecosystem.
  • Developed countries should acknowledge responsibility that they bear in international pursuit of sustainable development given the pressures their societies place on the global environment and technological and financial resources.
  • Parties to the Convention agreed that the largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated in developed countries. 
  • It was also acknowledged that per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low.
  • China, India, and other developing countries were, therefore, exempted from requirements of Kyoto Protocol.
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 1992 also provides that parties should act to protect the climate system “based on equity and by their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.”
• Targets for Developed Countries: Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement setting targets for industrialized countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. 
  • Certain gases like Carbon dioxide, Methane, Hydrofluorocarbons, etc. are considered at least partly responsible for global warming – a rise in global temperature that may have catastrophic consequences for life on Earth. 
  • The protocol was agreed to in 1997 in Kyoto Japan, based on principles set out in UNFCCC.

 Common Property Resources(CPR) 

Common property represents common property for the group. It represents common property for a group but with a rule that members of a group have both rights and duties concerning nature, and levels of use of a given resource.

• Causes of Shrinking CPR: A combination of factors, including privatization, agricultural intensification, population growth, and ecosystem degradation have caused common property to dwindle in size, quality, and availability to the poor in much of the world.

Conclusion

Global challenges like agricultural land degradation, fisheries depletion, and water pollution necessitate immediate sustainable solutions. International agreements such as the Rio Summit and Kyoto Protocol highlight the importance of equitable responsibility in managing global commons. Balancing economic growth with ecological stewardship remains pivotal in securing a sustainable future amid increasing global pressures.