We cannot have sound economies, sustainable societies, and healthy people without a healthy planet. Uncontrolled and rampant use of natural resources such as forests, land, water, and fisheries-often by the powerful few-have caused alarming changes in our natural world in recent decades. For example, human activities are causing losses in biodiversity at a rate 50 to 100 times faster than would otherwise be expected.
Energy is one of the areas that shows most clearly the gaps between the global rich and the global poor, and the social and economic inequities that result. One billion of the world's poorest people do not have access to regular energy supplies, forcing them to clear trees for firewood or burn heavy-polluting fuels like kerosene that harm human health. Meanwhile, high and often wasteful energy consumption by rich countries has caused spiking greenhouse gas emissions.
According to experts, these gases are causing human-induced climate change on an unprecedented scale. Climate change is causing rising sea levels that threaten coastal areas and even entire countries-like island nations in the Pacific. The poorest people in the world are the most vulnerable and often the most exposed to the unstable weather and violent storms likely to be more frequent with continued alteration of the Earth's climate.
