• Title
  • Impacts of meeting minimum access on critical earth systems amidst the Great Inequality
• Abstract

• Paraphrase

  • The Sustainable Development Goals aim to improve access to resources and services, reduce environmental degradation, eradicate poverty and reduce inequality.
  • However, the magnitude of the environmental burden that would arise from meeting the needs of the poorest is under debate—especially when compared to much larger burdens from the rich.
  • The ‘Great Acceleration’ of human impacts was also accompanied by a ‘Great Inequality’ in using and damaging the environment.
  • To correct the great inequality, the authors define ‘just access’ to minimum energy, water, food and infrastructure.
  • The penality incurred for achieving just access in 2018, with existing inequalities, technologies and behaviours, would have produced 2–26% additional impacts on the Earth’s natural systems of climate, water, land and nutrients—thus further crossing planetary boundaries.
  • These hypothetical impacts, caused by about a third of humanity, equalled those caused by the wealthiest 1–4%.
  • Technological and behavioural changes thus far, while important, did not deliver just access within a stable Earth system.
  • Achieving these goals therefore calls for a radical redistribution of resources.

• Comment

  • Check the 1/3 figure against the 2/3 figure equal to 4% of the wealthiest in the Earth System Justice paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01064-1#annotations:3cWMhLv6Ee2jgD9EDXKNVA

• Title: The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration
• Author: Steffen, Will; Broadgate, Wendy; Deutsch, Lisa; Gaffney, Owen and Ludwig, Cornelia Date: 2015

Fourth Transition: The Great Acceleration

Will Steffen et al: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053019614564785