In 1987, the Brundtland Commission launched the notion of sustainable development. Although an intellectually sound paradigm in which social and economic sustainability are inextricably linked to the management of natural resources and ecosystems, its implementation since then has been hotly contested and progress has fallen well short of international expectations.This now looks set to change. Almost 30 years after the concept was first introduced, thinking about and acting on sustainability is about to go mainstream.
Indeed, 2015 promises to be a big year for sustainable development. This September, the UN General Assembly met in New York to adopt a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals – the shared framework for global action and cooperation on sustainable development for the next 15 years. It will be followed closely by the 21st Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP21) in Paris, where governments will come together to hopefully sign a global treaty on climate change – the first such treaty since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.
Could the world finally be on the cusp of embracing sustainable development? Commitment to the SDGs and ratification of a global climate treaty, would suggest this to be the case. But what stands to swing the pendulum further in its favour is reliable data and information. Cold, hard, indisputable evidencethat allowsall of us to make informed decisions about how we are impacting the future of our planet.
As a Champion of the UN’s Global Partnership on Sustainable Data, Eye on Earth (EoE) is a global movement committed to addressing the data crisis that currently hampers decision making on sustainable development.EoE was born out of Principle 10 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. Considered the global standard for the promotion of environmental democracy, Principle 10calls for social inclusion at all levels of decision-making through access to information, public participation and justice. In December 2011, the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi (EAD), through the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI), in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), convened more than 1,700 global leaders, innovators and decisionmakers to an inaugural EoE Summit in Abu Dhabi.
The 2011 Summit resulted in the visionary EoE Summit Declaration and its 14 guiding principles, which form the foundation of all of EoE’s work. The Declaration has since been endorsed by 48 countries (16 countries, plus 32 European Environment Agency member countries). It also led to the creation of the EoE Alliance, which, in addition to EAD, AGEDI and UNEP, now includes the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the World Resources Institute (WRI). The Alliance partners serve an essential role in building capacity for EoE and extending the reach of its work.
Also in 2011, eight Special Initiatives (SIs) were created to form the backbone of the strategy to deliver the EoE mission. These Special Initiatives oversee numerous data-related projects currently being implemented all over the world in the areas of access for all (equal access), linked networks, environmental education, water security, biodiversity, oceans & blue carbon, community sustainability & resilience and disaster management.
In 2013, 11 of the SI projects were chosen to receive seed funding from EoE. These projects were recognised astransformational initiativesthatcould fundamentally improve the development of environmental and social information, and human and technical capacity critical to achieving the post-2015 global sustainable development agenda.
The first step toward harnessing environmental-related data for sustainable development lies in securing institutional buy-in, and this is where many SI projects have made good headway. This is especially true of the Access for All (A4A) Initiative and its “Building Bridges Between Regions” project, which strives to enable governmental and civil societystakeholdersin the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region to develop and execute institutional and legislative measures tofurther implement Principle 10 (P10). Through a series of forums and webinars,Building Bridges has engagednumerous actors in the decision-making process, and has succeeded in having them commit to the creation of a regional instrument on P10.
Similarly, the Falcon Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) project, under the Disaster Management Special Initiative,is working closely with a diverse, high-level stakeholder group across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to understand whichexisting and newdata assets can help local communities best prevent, prepare forand recover fromdisaster situations.This capacity building in a particularly sensitive geopolitical region cannot be underestimated. Falcon has demonstrated the need for local and national governments to collaborate with their regional counterparts, NGOs and the private sector to make data available for disaster management and preparedness. Even more encouraging is the willingness of these stakeholders to support some type of SDI governance process through the creation of a framework for spatial data discovery, evaluation and application. This would allow the data to be applied more broadly to address health crises, refugee issues and conflict situations.
Eye on Earth is also demonstrating the profound benefits of grass-root initiatives, such as citizen science and crowdsourcing of data,on sustainable development. The Ecocitizen World Map, a project under the Community Sustainability & Resiliency SI, shows how democratizing access to planning and development data can make the process of urban design and policy more inclusive. Following intensive training, programme participants share, via simple applications on their smart phone or the web, information on the status of various resources like water, food, materials, energy or transportation. This is then combined with geospatial information to produce a visual map, which can be used to monitor progress towards community health and sustainability targets and goals.Pilot projects in South America and North Africa have successfully engaged local communities in various initiatives, such as monitoring resource use, environmental toxicity and infrastructure loads. Not only can the findings be used to enhance the quality of life for people at a neighborhood level, they can also help influence and inform municipal and government-level strategies.
In the United Arab Emirates, theAbu Dhabi Blue Carbon Demonstration Project—whichlooks at the vital role coastal ecosystems play in mitigating climate change—hassuccessfully enhanced local capacity to measure and monitor carbon beneath mangroves, seagrass meadows and intertidal salt marshes. More important, is the incorporation of this data into local and national policy-making for sustainable preservation of these environments.
Within the EoE community,another 40-plusprojects are underway, and there are more being added as scientific and industry experts, academics, government and private organisationsstart to align their programmes of work withthe EoE movement. Testament to this is the overwhelming response EoE received to its call for more project proposalsearlier this year. More than80 new ideas were submitted, which are now seeking funding to put them into action. Funding these initiatives will enable the necessary innovation and technological solutions that, if deployed quickly and expansively, could speed up the transition to global sustainable development.
The EoE movement has demonstrated that data, when used properly, plays a critical role in sustainable development. In October the Eye on Earth community will reconvene in Abu Dhabi for the second Eye on Earth Summit. Focusing on identifying the challenges and potential solutions concerning the supply, demand and enabling conditions of data for sustainable development,the Summit will provide the tools and opportunities necessary for stakeholders to foster partnerships to work together to close the data gap. This achievement would help to ensure responsible and informed decision-making to guide all countries towards a promising and sustainable future. It would help countries in their efforts to realise the SDGs, and make a significant difference to the ability of individual countries to abide by the terms of a global climate treaty.
By Ahmed Abdulmuttaleb Baharoon is executive director, environmental information, science & outreach management at Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi and acting director of Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI)