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"A price on the environment does not mean a commodification of the environment"Documentation from the seminar with Pavan Sukhdev
Putting a price on the environment is not about commodifying the Earth and valuing natural resources is not about creating simple cost-benefit models for the entire world. Valuing natural resources is about counteracting the economic invisibility of nature. An invisibility that leads to poor policies and treaties. These were some of the messages from Pavan Sukhdev, previous Head of UNEP’s Green Economy Initiative, when he attended a seminar on May 9th that was arranged by Global Challenge and Stockholm Environment Institute.
Pavan Sukhdev launched the seminar with a presentation about TEEB – The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity. The idea behind TEEB is to lift and valuing everything the ecosystem and biological diversity contributes with to society, particularly in underdeveloped nations.
– We already know enough about how the earths natural resources are being exploited. What we need to do is to find models that allows the ecosystem and biological diversity to be placed on the balance sheet, said Pavan Sukhdev. It will not be easy, we do not have the answers for how to accomplish this but that is what must be done.
Below is Pavan Sukhdevs presentation from May 9th:
From words to action
Pavan Sukhdevs prelude was commented by Carl Folke, Stockholm Resilience Centre and expert on ecosystem services. He underlined the need for a paradigm shift and a return to the insight that humanity is a part of nature.
Martin Ådahl, CEO of the liberal think tank FORES, stated that even in Sweden where we are considered to have a high climate and environmental awareness, we often have a difficult time going from words to action.
– There is too little focus on HOW the problems should be solved, said Martin Ådahl. I agree completely with the notion that we already know enough about the extent of the problems.
Ådahl pointed to our need for clear measurements and the difficulty to replace these. Therein lays one of the difficulties to make politicians and economists to include these new parameters in account.
– Then of course there is the many questions on how this is to be done, but even if we do not have all the answers today, it is still better to try and be fairly accurate than to not do anything and be wrong, said Martin Ådahl.
Concretize and simplify
In the following discussion with the audience, many questioned todays measures of growth, but also the complexity of the issues. Pavan Sukhdev and several speakers underlined the importance of breaking down the figures to a more regional and local level, and also to adapt the measures for growth so that more people can understand it.
– GDP is a concept people think they understand, thus an adaptation of GDP is a good first step, stated Pavan Sukhdev. We must simplify and make this discussion more understandable, more concrete and more available to the public. Failure to accomplish this will lead to us standing here and talk about the same issues again in 35 years – and I do not want to experience that!
The evenings moderator, Anders Wijkman, pointed out that the issue of putting a price on the environment may be most important for people in the developing world. Something Pavan Sukhdev, with roots in India, clearly agreed on. He emphasized that this is just the beginning and that the answers for all the questions do not yet exist.
– We do not yet fully understand how to value natural resources, but we know that not trying is not the answer to the challenges we face.
Below is a recording of Pavan Sukhdevs lecture:
