HEALTH RISK AND SUSTAINABILITY

Health Risk and Sustainability

Health Risk and Sustainability

Introduction

The document cites India including the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a program providing at least 100 days of paid employment to rural households, invests more than 80% of 8 billion of its endowment in activities related to water conservation, irrigation and land development. This program has generated three billion days of work that has benefited nearly 60 million households. Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam today are losing 2% of their combined GDP due to waterborne diseases due to poor sanitation. Reorienting policies more than 0.1% of global GDP per year could help solve the sanitation problems and preserve fresh water by reducing the water demand of a fifth compared to the estimates by 2050. The report modeled the results of policies that will redirect about $ 1.3 trillion dollars a year toward green investments and ten key areas, about 2% of global GDP. By comparison, this amount represents less than one tenth of the total annual investment in physical capital. Currently, between 1 and 2% of global GDP is spent on various subsidies that often perpetuate the unsustainable use of resources in areas such as fossil fuels, agriculture (including subsidies for pesticides) water and fishing.

Discussion

Compared to maintaining the status quo, also a higher rate of growth, and the global transition to a green economy generating income per capita higher than those of current business models and reduce the environmental footprint of nearly 50% in 2050. The report on the green economy recognizes that progress towards sustainable development would inevitably by job losses in some sectors such as fishing. To ensure equitable and socially acceptable transition will require investment, sometimes by reallocation of amounts recovered from the decline of harmful subsidies, training and acquisition of new knowledge for some segments of the global workforce. The report shows that over time the number of "new and decent jobs created" in areas ranging from renewable energy to a more sustainable agriculture, however, offset the losses from those generated by the old "brown economy." He argues, for example, investing about 1.25% of global GDP per year in energy efficiency and renewable energy would reduce global demand for primary energy from 9% in 2020 and nearly 40% in 2050. The employment level of energy would be higher than the fifth scenario, maintaining the status quo because renewable represent around 30% of global primary energy demand by mid-century. In a scenario of a green economy, the economies of capital and fuel costs for electricity production would rise to 760 billion per year on average between 2010 and 2050. Moreover, the reliance on education is fostered by a questionable rationale at the heart of developing social mobility policy about the role and nature of the future labor market. This rationale is that the way to improve social mobility is by “positioning the UK to benefit from more and better job opportunities in the global economy” (Cabinet Office, 2008, p. 41). The understanding is that education and skills will ...