The construction sector is driving activity.

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SYSPEO / SIPA

The development of humanity is being done "at a devastating cost to Nature," warns a report, commissioned two years ago by the British government, from the University of Cambridge, published on Tuesday.

According to this 600-page report, world GNP per capita has doubled since 1992, but "natural capital", or the estimate of benefits derived from services offered by Nature, has fallen by 40%.

Rebalancing the link between Man and Nature

"While humanity has prospered immensely in recent decades, the way in which we have achieved this prosperity means that it has been acquired at a devastating cost to Nature," write the authors.

They call for a rebalancing of the link between Man and Nature, recalling on the strength of many other studies the close links between the preservation of biodiversity and human living conditions, particularly in terms of health.

The ongoing mass extinction of living species "undermines the productivity, resilience and adaptability of Nature," they write.

The already visible consequences of this loss, such as the current Covid-19 pandemic, favored by land transformations (deforestation for agriculture in particular) and the exploitation of certain wild species, could constitute "the emerged part of the iceberg ”if human economic development continues unabated.

Rethinking the growth model

"We are totally dependent on Nature," warns British documentary filmmaker and environmental activist David Attenborough in a preface to the report.

“It provides us with the air we breathe and everything we eat.

But we damage it so much that many of its ecosystems are on the verge of collapse ”.

However, the report stresses, economic models based on growth alone do not integrate the benefits derived from biodiversity.

Nature protection programs are therefore often under-funded, while sectors such as fossil fuels or intensive agriculture, whose effects on biodiversity and global warming are proven, benefit from 4,000 to 6,000 billion dollars. annual investments.

More than a Marshall Plan

These investment models, often supported by States, "exacerbate the problem by paying people more to exploit Nature than to protect it", regret the authors.

They call for replacing the only traditional accounting of growth (GDP) by a calculation of economic well-being taking into account the services provided by Nature.

But such a reorientation towards more sustainable growth would require systemic changes - notably the “decarbonisation” of the energy system - driven by “an ambition, coordination and political will similar, or even greater, to the Marshall Plan” for economic reconstruction at the end of the Second World War.

The authors of the report, like many international associative and political leaders before them, calls for two important meetings of green diplomacy, the COP 15 on biodiversity and the COP26 on the climate, now scheduled for 2021 after having been postponed due to the pandemic, levers to launch these transformations.

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  • Sustainable development

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  • Development