Sustainable Germany: A View from the South; July 2002 -- pdf

4. ENERGY AND CLIMATE PROTECTION IN GERMANY
4.1 Efficiency vs. sufficiency: Sustainability challenges
For more than a decade now, scientific evidence has linked energy consumption with
Global Warming and Climate Change, one of the greatest challenges for present and future
generations of the whole world. At the same time, world-wide primary energy consumption
has increased by more than five times since 1950 and the share of resources
has become increasingly unequal. Today, less than 25% of the world population consumes
almost 75% of the world energy resources, with industrial development as a major
force in energy demand.
The high rate of the environmental deterioration of global and regional ecosystems demands
a major shift towards more sustainable modes of production and consumption if
life on the planet is to be maintained and the needs of present and future generations are
to be met. Yet, today's global economic growth is driving an increasing demand for resources,
goods and services for an ever-expanding global market. The expanding human
population and the development model continue to put increasing pressure on the environment
and life-supporting ecosystems, particularly in developing countries. These are
major challenges that Germany, having a high ecological-footprint as a member of the
most industrialised countries, can not avoid.
The accumulated effect of global warming gases has already induced global climate
changes with multidimensional effects on ecosystems and human populations across the
world. A large percentage of the accumulated gases have been generated by industrialised
countries, responsible for close to 70% of the total share of annual emissions. Since
the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, governments have accepted a common but differentiated
responsibility on climate change, undertaking effective measures to decrease the
emissions of global warming gases. The Kyoto Protocol has established a binding
framework to set limits on emissions for participating countries to ease the pressure on
global climate systems.
Furthermore, it is widely accepted that developing nations also need to utilise their fair
share of the earth's resources as they strive to develop their own productive base to tend
to the needs of their growing populations. Attaining fair levels of services and quality of
life for billions will require new and large amounts of energy and material resources.
This demand will in turn increase the stress and deterioration of the resource base of regional
and global ecosystems unless some drastic changes to development models are
put in place. The development model of the rich North does not fit with the need to care
for the planet and the billions of people still living under poverty and exclusion.
In this context, awareness is growing in most industrialised nations that for the sake of
global equity, they have to make drastic reductions in resource consumption and energy
use. Productive systems need to shift towards less polluting processes while reducing
material consumption through changes in technology, new resource management
schemes and less consumption. Thus, structural transformation towards sustainable development
is challenging a broad array of social structures and policies and along with
them new patterns of energy production and use. Only with broad social support and
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