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GLOBAL ALLIANCE FOR PEACE AND PROSPERITY

T

he global rise from poverty has a negative connotation. The world economy has nearly doubled in the last 25 years. This impressive growth is borne by our global ecosystem. Year after year the global community looses 130,000 km² of forested area due to deforestation. This corresponds to the area of Greece.

This process has been accelerated by China's industrial revolution. China , the world's most populous country in the world, lifted hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty. Chinese people are just waking up towards consuming and the world is feeling it. The prices for global commodities ranging from base metals to grains are increasing and natural resources are going down. The price of copper has tripled in just half a decade. The price for zinc has doubled. Wheat and soybeans rose almost 70% within last year. A global boom in the prices of commodities is entering its sixth year in the row with no end in sight. The global recession will only lower prices for a short period of time.

Economic development rolls across once-destitute countries like China, India and Russia at a breathtaking pace. As a result the demand for foodstuffs, for metals and for fuel is rising so fast that suppliers are struggling to meet it. Prices are soaring and families find themselves in what amounts to a biding war with buyers in other countries for everything from milk to gasoline. This will worsen, when the recession will become a full depression. As a result we will see civil unrest in many countries around the world.

Talking about gasoline. Crude oil is getting hard to find. Most new oilfields are all offshore and underwater oilfields that are very difficult to exploit. Moreover, crude oil remains the major cause for climate change. We have to highly tax crude oil to finance research and development of eco-friendly energy sources. The more we depend on crude oil, the more intense will be the impact of climate change in terms of storms and other natural disasters. The global community already experiences the beginning of negative impacts of climate change. Droughts and also excessive rains have produced sporadic grain shortages.

Fortunately, Chinese people have not yet adopted American consuming habits. If they would do so it is estimated that China would need 67% of the worlds corn production and 76% of the global meat production. But the root of the boom is China's rush to build new factories, buildings and roads to satisfy the needs of a growing, increasingly wealthy global urban population with tastes for toys, clothes, electronics, cars and other modern consumer goods. China builds 5,000 km of roads every year. By 2010 China will have a road network of 70,000 km.

Today China has 7,000 steel factories, double the number it had in 2002. Every new factory needs electricity, which means more power plants must be built. More diesel- powered trains are needed to get the coal to these power plants. Also more trucks and expanded ports are needed to move the steel to the factories. Chinese people don't drive with their bicycle to work anymore, they do this with a car. Every year China produces almost 3 million private cars by itself. When this trend continues, China will become the biggest producer of greenhouse gases. Already China consumes more than 40% of the worlds coal production and 25% of the global steel and nickel production.

China's economy has grown an average of 10.1 percent annually since 1982. For the last three years this growth has been almost taken away by Chinese governmental spending on environment which equaled to 10 percent of its gross national product. Chinese govermental officials have realized that the countries economic development should be a sustainable development. Greenpeace predicts that China will be the worlds biggest producer of wind and solar energy by 2015. The Chinese government even agreed to openly discuss eco taxes on gas, sewage and emissions of greenhouse gases.

The time has come to rethink our fundamental principles of our global economy. Economic growth should not have an adverse environmental impact. There are economic advantages of an intelligent and sustainable management. A global economy along with sustainable development will be the answer. A global economy does rely on a healthy and well-balanced global environment. Prices of raw materials will continue to go up and the global community will have to learn to alter the way we live. There is enough for everyone to enjoy a basic economic vitality. So instead of competing who has more, we have to learn to cooperate and share, so we can all face a new era of global peace and sustainable prosperity.

WE HAVE TO CHANGE PRODUCTION AND MAKE IT MORE SUSTAINABLE