2006/2007 Annual Report - International Institute for Sustainable ...

As our Chair points out in his message, public interest in the environment has never been so high. The policy-makers’ summaries of the
working groups of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; the pictures of ever diminishing snow and ice coverage in the Arctic; and
the easily observable changes in the day-to-day climate in most countries, have pushed green issues to the top of the public agenda. In Canada,
pollsters are heralding the fact that environment is now the “top of mind” issue. Unprecedented, eh?
Well, not exactly. This Institute opened its doors in 1990, the last time the environment was number one on the agenda. The steady drumbeat
of media stories that followed the publication of the Brundtland Report, the Exxon Valdez disaster and the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, led
to a kind of “eco-fatigue” that relegated green issues to the specialist journals for a decade.
I think that this time the awareness is different. It is more urgent and more connected in the public mind with the other great worries of our
time: terrorism; the persistence of grinding poverty in much of the world; and a sense that what happens in one part of the world affects us all.
In any case, we now have an unprecedented degree of policy space to develop solutions that promote more sustainable forms of development.
IISD is well suited to fill some of this space. We know that dealing with climate change is not just a matter of mitigation.
It requires new approaches to development that help countries to eradicate poverty while they build the resilience
necessary to adapt to the changes we already see. We know that certain trade and investment policies are more likely to
promote more sustainable forms of development. We know that our failures to internalize costs and our willingness
to subsidize many forms of unsustainable development distort the market and make matters worse. The programs
described in this report provide practical solutions to these dilemmas.
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Many of these problems are global and
will require much more effective global
mechanisms to deal with them. Our
Reporting Services team continues to
make the international negotiations on
environmental issues more transparent
and legitimate. And we are now moving to
provide recommendations on the reform of
international environmental governance. Our Knowledge
Communications program seeks new ways to mobilize Internet
communications in support of sustainable development and to
appeal to young Canadians who have a burning desire to be
involved in these issues.
The North American prairies will become increasingly vulnerable to
change, coping with higher temperatures and less water. The
preservation of those areas, which provide vital ecological goods and
services, has become a major public policy priority and we have new
and innovative ways to deal with the problems.
And finally, we have ways of measuring progress on the road to more
sustainable forms of development, whether it be at the community
level in Winnipeg, or with aboriginal people, or at the global level.
We have always had the ideas. Now we have a more willing audience.
The challenge is clear.
David Runnalls
President and CEO
“In Canada, pollsters are
heralding the fact that
environment is now the
‘top of mind’ issue.
Unprecedented, eh?”
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