Draft:UN Charter for Ecological Justice

Please don't delete this article, I am hoping to resubmit the related research paper, it requires some rewriting first. The UN Charter for Ecological Justice is a concept that was included in the 2023 global stocktake for Paris Climate agreement in a paper submitted to the UNFCCC in the name of the publishing house Poems for Parliament. The UN Charter for Ecological Justice seeks to address the flaw in our Human Rights and our global economic model, by inspiring an ambition to reduce the global economy and population size in a voluntary and equitable manner until we return within the biocapacity of Earth. It goes further than suggesting that we should try to eliminate the global ecological overshoot as measured by the Global Footprint Network, it follows the advice of the famous biologist and naturalist E O Wilson and recommends that we plan a strategic retreat in our global enterprise until we operate within half the available biocapacity of Earth.

Research from Dr W E Rees challenges the model of growth economics which is deeply embedded in our modern pedagogy, legislation and business thinking; it warns that we now face the inevitable consequence of human population correction. This population correction may have already commenced, for we are seeing increased mortality rates in recent years. Overpopulation increases the possibility of pandemics ; it also exacerbates the problems with greenhouse gas emissions ; however the impact of population size on environmental stress is not taught in our schools. The Charter for Ecological Justice can deliver a consensus on the wisdom of shrinking Gross World Product until we return within the carrying capacity of Earth. The worthy objectives expressed in the Earth Charter complement the quantitative objectives expressed in the UN Charter for Ecological Justice.

The list of organisations embracing the Degrowth mindset is growing. A further scientific paper reveals the Behavioural Crisis Driving Ecological Overshoot, and yet another explores the links between sustainability, population and reproductive ethics. In December 2023 the IPBES COP15 European scientists and many more voted to halve production and consumption by 2030. A paper on 'Rationing and Climate Change Mitigation' offers a fair route forward for humanity to minimise resource use and suggests a way to treat the escalating global ecosystems collapse as an emergency. This strategy would also address several of the Sustainable Development Goals, and also allows us to rethink those which are not achievable within the growth mindset.

We need to ask ourselves why poverty SDG1, precedes hunger SDG2 in priority, for we cannot eat money. This reveals a major flaw in the prevailing mindset within the affluent and 'educated' world. The SDGs are worthy aims but they were conceived within the growth mindset, which fails to recognise the physical limitations on Earth. Another indication of the cultural shift that is underway in favour of the Degrowth mindset is the apostolic exhortation from Pope Francis. In item 72, the Pope offers the excessive consumption per capita in the US as an example to state 'that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact '.

The UN Charter for Ecological Justice raises human ambition to maximise mitigation from the unfolding climate and ecosystems breakdown in a peaceful and equitable manner. It addresses the failure of our Declaration of Human Rights to protect the needs of the biodiversity and healthy eco-systems that are needed for human survival. Human Rights combines with growth economics to encourage interspecies eugenics; whereby, the human species is favoured over all other life-forms. Adopting an Ubuntu philosophy that includes all life-forms, will enable us to peacefully embrace the ambition expressed in the UN Charter for Ecological Justice; this is the hypothesis on which the Roadmap to Ecological Justice hinges.

History
The Charter was mentioned in a joint post-COVID review paper, that was produced by the UN Commons Cluster in advance of the High-level Political Forum in 2022. Later that year the full proposed wording featured in a submission to the High-level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism entitled 'A Framework for Maximum Mitigation'. The submission to the global stocktake summarises many of the ideas in the science paper 'Scientists Warning proposes a Roadmap to Ecological Justice' that is currently undergoing peer review.

The reality of the unfolding climate and ecological apocalypse is being confirmed from many quarters within the scientific community. Researchers are now warning that ecological doom-loops are likely to arise more quickly than anticipated. The work of Lester Brown, especially his book 'World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse' (ISBN: 9781849712743) was very prescient, but sadly went unheeded. The travesty of ecological injustice is a consequence of growth economics; this is revealed in the Roadmap to Ecological Justice. Research by Lucia Tamburino suggested that a fulfilled life for a human can usually be achieved with a footprint under 2.14 global hectares. The bar chart shown uses this guiding value to analyse the extent of ecological injustice shown in the 2018 data from the Global Footprint Network. Blue represents the overconsumption which is mainly seen in countries in the global North who are using more than 2.14gha per capita. Orange represents those countries with an average ecological footprint under 214gha per capita. The Charter declares a global ambition to equitably reduce our global usage back within half the biocapacity of Earth in order for biodiversity to thrive. Using this criteria as the guide to our planetary limitations, the low consuming countries shown in orange, would already take Earth almost to full capacity. Despite their low consumption they are operating over capacity by a factor of two; they also experience very low life-expectancy compared to those in high-consuming countries. This low life-expectancy is due to a combination of overpopulation, and having to face the escalating climate and ecosystems breakdown without the health services and other resilience measures that are employed in affluent countries at considerable financial and ecological cost. We are already seeing breaches into the danger zone of 1.5 degrees of warming since pre-industrial levels, according to the Copernicus Climate tracking services.

The countries who are exceeding 2.14 gha per capita, shown in blue, are often loosely referred to as the 'global North'. For them to shrink back within the 'half-Earth' definition of ecological overshoot, they need to reduce their consumption by a factor of nearly six. Obviously any voluntary reduction in population will be helpful to achieve a reduction in gross ecological footprint. To achieve the ambition in the Charter the sum of both the orange and blue total ecological footprint will need come under 6 billion global hectares; or half whatever the diminished global total biocapacity becomes as the collapse accelerates. The eco-costly health services in the high-consumption countries explains the longer life-expectancies, and some of the high footprint; there is also a great deal of non-essential consumption and overpopulation that goes to create the huge injustice that we are seeing in this bar chart. This reveals the extreme injustice between the global North and South that results in the way that we exploit the global Commons. This damaging activity is driven by the desire to increase Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The insights from the I=PAT equation reveal that the three key drivers of environmental damage are also factors that increase GDP. This insight, coupled by the recent addition to our Human Rights declaring our right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, means that there is now a legal case to be answered by those who continue to follow the model of economic growth as defined by GDP. The Degrowth movement and the Beyond Growth, Post Growth and those seeking a Wellbeing Economy, are reluctant to admit that a reduction in Gross World Product is necessary in order to achieve sustainability. The Preface in the paper from the UN Commons Cluster offers clarity in this debate.

The theoretical population of 2.8 billion shown in green might be too much, in the same way that 1.5 degrees of global warming might prove too much. A more cautious approach requires greater ambition. Therefore, a target global population of about 2 billion would be a wiser objective. reworded instead

The UN demographic forecasts work on extrapolating natality and mortality rates, they do not factor in the effect of ecological doom-loops on humanity's ability to subsist. The demographic model suggested by Prof C Bystroff endeavours to take into account the impact of ecological stresses; his figure 4 predicts population collapse if we fail to adopt an ambition like that described in the Charter for Ecological Justice. The data on population size in countries that are most affected by climate and ecosystems breakdown is much less reliable than in the affluent countries. Therefore it is possible that this population collapse has already commenced but as yet is undetected.

The UN Charter for Ecological Justice is getting mentioned in the discussions leading up to the UN Summit of the Future due to take place in 2024. These are high-level international discussions that are focused on achieving the objectives in the United Nations initiative - Our Common Agenda. The fourth item mentioned in the summary within the Common Agenda document recognises that profits come at the expense of people and planet; and that we have an incomplete picture of the true cost of economic growth. It goes on to state that, as currently measured, gross domestic product (GDP) fails to capture the human and environmental destruction of some business activities; the agenda calls for new measures, so that people can gain a full understanding of the impacts of business activities.