On an evolutionary level you could say the species had a fabulously successful year. It increased by more than 80million people and most of its 6,5billion members lived longer than they could have expected just 30 years ago. People moved around and traded with one another more than ever and mostly survived whatever the natural world chucked at them.
But history will look back on 2007 and see a species in transition. In the next few months the United Nations will declare that we have transmuted to an urban species, with more people in cities than the countryside. Only 100 years ago nearly all humanity worked and lived close to where they grew or collected food and adapted their lives to the resources they had to hand. People are now increasingly grouping together and engineering environments for their sole use.
“The world’s urban map is being redrawn,” David Satterthwaite, a senior fellow with the International Institute for Environment and Development, declared in October. Africa has a larger urban population than North America with 25 of the world’s fastest-growing large cities. Half the world’s urban population in 2007 lived in Asia and Europe’s share of the world’s 100 largest cities has fallen from more than half to less than 10% in the past century. It now has none of the world’s 100 fastest-growing cities.
But 2007 will also be remembered as the year climate change rose up the international agenda. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize and warned that, if left unchecked, the world’s average temperature could rise as much as 6°C by the end of the century, killing hundreds of millions of people, destroying economies and changing all life.
World governments finally agreed in Bali to work together to try to stave off the worst effects. But, in fraught negotiations, the United States tried to wreck the talks, was humiliated, then signed up reluctantly to work towards a post-Kyoto treaty.
The road to Copenhagen, where the concluding talks will be held in 2009, will be tortuous. The agreement failed to set a clear target for the cuts needed globally or in the developed world, but it did address deforestation and technology transfer to poor countries.
The main US beef was with China. It not only overtook the US as the single biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, it also scoured developing countries for natural resources to fuel its industrial revolution. The US demanded China cuts its emissions, even if, on a per capita basis, the 1Â 200million Chinese emit only a quarter of the average American.
Like other rapidly developing countries, China pursued two separate development paths. One, unfettered, breakneck growth powered by coal and oil; two, exploring the possibilities of a low-resource economy based on green energy and new technologies. In 2007 China committed itself to building 300 eco-cities to house 300million people expected to leave the countryside in the next 30 years; and as fast as it opened giant new coal power stations, it also developed wind and solar power plants.
The bulk of evidence, though, suggested no country was really adapting consumption to scarce resources. A UN study, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report, says 60% of ecosystem services that support life are being seriously degraded or used unsustainably. It warned of new diseases, sudden changes in water quality, the creation of “dead zones” along coasts, the collapse of fisheries and shifts in regional climate.
But land degradation, not climate change was, surprisingly, top of its list of immediate challenges. This risks destabilising societies, endangering food security and increasing poverty.
The rush for resources led to prices of food, oil, land and most other commodities soaring. Agri-businesses from Iowa to South Africa turned to growing biofuels with a vengeance. Millions of acres of US land were turned to growing fuels. Indonesia, Africa, Latin America and India followed and tropical forests were felled.
As a direct result of demand the price of oil rose from $55 a barrel in January to more than $90 by year end, raising food prices and tensions even further across the world.
As companies failed to replenish their oil reserves, a race developed for unconventional sources of energy. Venezuela, the US and Canada are now at the frontline of huge opencast mining operations to extract oil from shales and tar sands.
Agriculture further consolidated into the hands of ever fewer companies. Syngenta, Bayer, Monsanto, BASF, Dow and DuPont now control nearly 85% of the $30billion annual pesticide market; Cargill, Archer Daniels and Bunge control nearly 90% of global grain trade; a handful of firms account for about half the world sales of seeds.
But the tumultuous year of change and transition ended with the human race signalling it was at least prepared to act in some kind of unison. Whether the 180 countries that met in Bali can now shift their econoÂmies to meet climate change will define the age. But we won’t know that for some years. — Â