sustainable development 20 years on from the ... - José Eli da Veiga

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Records are also kept in Latin America and the Caribbean of disaster-related loss and damage.
These have become more robust and help provide an overview of the consequences of inappropriate land
use and occupation, lack of governance, and environmental degradation, as the main causes of this loss
and damage. It is still believed, however, that this information does not belong in environmental
information systems and, in general, it does not yet constitute a mainstay of decision-making processes
aimed at reducing the region’s exposure and vulnerability to various threats (ISDR, <strong>20</strong>11). 3
In terms of the future <strong>development</strong> of environmental statistics, one challenge is to produce data
disaggregated by sex, age and other factors such as race and ethnicity for variables relating to people
(such as access to services and exposure to pollutants). This disaggregation will highlight any inequalities
regarding these factors, in order to orient policies and measures.
International environmental sustainability goals adopted at the global level in Millennium
Development Goal 7 encouraged the monitoring of environmental sustainability indicators in the region
and explains in part the progress made on environmental issues in public agendas (see United Nations,
<strong>20</strong>10). Millennium Development Goal 7 has been periodically evaluated at the regional level by all the
bodies of the United Nations system that operate in the region. 4
2. Incorporating an environmental perspective into measurements
of wealth and economic growth
An outstanding issue with regard to use of information both in the region and internationally is how to
account for wealth and assign value to the environment and to environmental degradation. This must be
resolved in order to fully integrate the three pillars of <strong>development</strong> and ensure that the different arms of
government act consistently. Methodologies are already available or are being developed, each with a
different approach.
“Environmental accounts” is one such approach. Environmental information is integrated with
economic information to adjust macroeconomic indicators and reflect environmental damage and the loss
of natural resources. The System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA), which is
consistent with the System of National Accounts (SNA), is an example of this. The SEEA makes it
possible to incorporate measurements that reflect the impact of economic processes on the environment
and the contribution of natural assets to economic <strong>development</strong> and growth. SEEA implementation in
Latin America has been given fresh impetus in recent <strong>years</strong>. Several countries in the region are drawing
up plans to implement it over the next few <strong>years</strong>, but progress has been uneven (UNEP, <strong>20</strong>10a).
Colombia and Mexico are the only countries in the region that have permanent programmes for
calculating environmental accounts, and both are based in the national statistical institutes. In Mexico, one
of the main overall indicators that is published annually is the Ecological Net Domestic Product (ENDP).
This indicator is drawn from the national accounts calculated by the National Institute of Statistics and
Geography (INEGI) and is obtained by deducting two costs from GDP: fixed capital consumption and
environmental use costs (analogous to depreciation). The latter includes natural resource depletion and
environmental degradation costs. As a reference, in <strong>20</strong>09 Mexico’s ENDP was 81% of GDP (see table I.5).
3
4
See databases [online] http://www.preventionweb.net/english/hyogo/gar/<strong>20</strong>11/en/what/ddp.html or
http://online.desinventar.org/.
See United Nations (<strong>20</strong>10) and “Millennium Development Goals in Latin America and the Caribbean” [online]
http://www.eclac.cl/mdg/default.asp?idioma=IN