|
For years, industrial countries have raised the specter of the heavily populated developing world threatening the earth's environment by not controlling its birth rate. However, on reflection, it is not so much the number of heads that matter - a country's population - as far as the use of natural resources is concerned but, to put it somewhat crudely, what is in people's bellies. In other words, even countries with small populations can extract a bigger toll of the environment if their per capita consumption of resources is very much larger. And in an increasingly globalized world, consumers are accessing goods produced far beyond their national frontiers.
This year's State of the World report by the Worldwatch Institute in Washington does well to focus on the Consumer Society. In 2000, households throughout the world spent some $20 trillion on goods and services - a fourfold increase from 1960. Worldwatch squarely addresses the issue by drawing attention to the fact that 12 per cent of the world's population living in North America and Western Europe account for 60 per cent of global consumer spending, while one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the globe's poorest regions, account for only 3.2 per cent.
Last year, Americans had more cars than there were licensed drivers. New homes were almost 40 per cent bigger than they were in 1975, although there were fewer occupants in each household on average. As the report puts it, "Americans themselves are larger as well - so much bigger, in fact, that a multi-billion dollar industry has emerged to cater to the need of large Americans, supplying them with oversized clothing, sturdier furniture and even super sized caskets."
Disparities between Rich and Poor
Worldwatch takes forward a pioneering Human Development Report (HDR) brought out by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) six years ago, which had also focused on consumption. The HDR pointed out that the richest one-fifth of the world's people consume 45 per cent of all the fish and meat, while the poorest fifth just 5 per cent. The richest one-fifth also consume 58 per cent of the world's total energy, while the poorest fifth consumes less than 4 per cent. They also use 74 per cent of all the telephone lines, while the poorest fifth have to make do with 1.1 per cent. In 1998, the average African household consumed 20 per cent less, in general, than it did a quarter of a century previously.
Astonishingly, it showed that just 225 of the world's richest people had a combined wealth of over $1 trillion - equal to the annual income of nearly half the globe's people, numbering 2.5 billion at the time. Indeed, just the wealth of the 32 richest people exceeded the total GDP of all of South Asia.
While the world is aware of such disparities in general, the extent certainly comes as a shock. What is more, even within rich countries, the UNDP reported, between 7-17 per cent of the population are poor. The HDR devised a human poverty index that found that Sweden had the least disparities, while the US had the greatest. In 1998, there were 100 million people in industrial countries whose consumption standards were low and twice as many who were not expected to survive beyond 60. More than 100 million were homeless and 37 million were unemployed.
Putting Things into Perspective
This year's Worldwatch report, however, puts things in perspective by demonstrating that there is now a global consumer class, which has annual incomes exceeding $7,000 of purchasing power parity, a World Bank income measure adjusted for the buying power in local currency. This number totals 1.7 billion people, which is more than a quarter of the globe's people.
It will come as a big surprise to learn that almost half this global consumer class lives in developing countries. China and India alone constitute a fifth of the global total. Together, such consumers in the two most populous countries comprise 362 million, which is larger than this class in all of Western Europe, even though the average Chinese or Indian consumes much less than his or her European counterpart. There is no doubt that as incomes rise in developing countries in future, and consumption standards rise in conjunction, the toll on the environment will be very heavy.
Both Worldwatch and UNDP are concerned with what can be done to keep consumerism in check. This is easier said than done, given the globalization process and the barrage of advertising that consumers all over the world are exposed to, thanks particularly to satellite TV. An average American spends 1,000 hours over a lifetime watching some 150,000 ads on TV. Even three years ago, global advertising spending was estimated at $446 billion per year. Rural audiences are being exposed to an increasing array of goods through this medium. The food industry in India is growing by 40 per cent a year and is expected to notch up sales worth $1 billion by next year.
Worldwatch pertinently questions if the global consumer class is experiencing a higher quality of life as a result of its higher levels of consumption, given the personal costs associated with this trend - not least, growing financial indebtedness. The environmental limits to consumption have to be borne in mind, so that all countries embark on a sustainable development path, keeping in mind the needs of succeeding generations. The excessive use of natural resources exacts a price in personal or societal well being and must be kept in check. In all developing countries, for example, cities are battling with mountains of waste, which will have to be reduced through recycling and other laws.
The Washington-based think-tank also questions whether consumers are being truly given sufficient choices, which advertising - especially with global brands - restricts. It cites, for instance, how alternatives to the private automobile, like mass public transport, amenities for pedestrians and cyclists and car-sharing can offer people far better choices in everyday travel. On the other hand, a desirable choice like organic food may not be affordable and such industries, which are protective of the environment, ought to receive appropriate subsidies in order to enable them to compete with mass-produced food.
Finally, Worldwatch asks whether societies can create a consumption ethic that gives priority to meeting the basic needs of everyone. There are more people in the world today who live on less than $2 a day than there are in the global consumer class. UNDP goes further and calls for minimum consumption requirements for all as a basic human right and as a policy objective in all countries. This would include food security and priority public expenditures for basic social services like health and education. It recommends incentives to develop "poor people's goods", like low-cost housing materials, energy-saving equipment and food storage systems. It also stresses the creation of institutions and legal frameworks that secure people's right to housing, to common property and credit.
|
