Energy after Rio - Prospects and Challenges - Executive Summary (UNDP, 1997, 38 p.): 2. Energy and Major Global Issues: 2.2 Energy and Environment: 2.2.4 Land Degradation

Energy after Rio - Prospects and Challenges - Executive Summary (UNDP, 1997, 38 p.)

(introduction...)

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Notes on the Authors and Contributors

Abstract

1. Introduction

2. Energy and Major Global Issues

(introduction...)

2.1 Energy and Social Issues

2.1.1 Poverty

2.1.2 Gender Disparity

2.1.3 Population

2.1.4 Undernutrition and Food

2.2 Energy and Environment

2.2.1 Health

2.2.2 Acidification

2.2.3 Climate Change

2.2.4 Land Degradation

2.3 Energy and the Economy

(introduction...)

2.3.1 Investment Requirements of Energy

2.3.2 Foreign Exchange Impacts of Energy Imports

2.4 Energy and Security

(introduction...)

2.4.1 Energy and National Security

2.4.2 Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation

2.5 Energy and Global Issues: The Implications

3. New Opportunities in Energy Demand, Supply and Systems

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Demand Side: Energy and Energy-Intensive Materials Efficiency

3.3 Supply Side: Renewables and Clean Fossil Fuel Technologies

3.4 Fuels and Stoves for Cooking

4. Sustainable Strategies

4.1 Global Energy Scenarios

4.2 Implications for the Developing World

4.3 Implications for Energy Exporting Economies

4.4 Some General Implications of Sustainable Energy Systems

4.4.1 Energy and the Economy

4.4.2 Energy and Poverty

4.4.3 Creating Jobs

4.4.4 Women

4.4.5 Rural Development

4.4.6 Urban Development

4.4.7 Energy and the Environment

4.4.8 Energy and Security

4.5 Conclusions

5. Making It Happen: Energy for Sustainable Development

Glossary of Abbreviations

2.2.4 Land Degradation

emissions will have to fall below the present level in order to stabilise the atmospheric concentration of CO₂

Globally about 2000 million hectares of land have been degraded - an area equal to more than one third of all cropland and forested land. Some 300 million hectares are under such severe stress conditions that damage can be considered irreversible. If left unchecked, most of the remaining degraded land is likely to reach similar conditions. Land continues to be degraded at rates that are high by historical standards. The major causes of land degradation are deforestation, shifting cultivation practices in agriculture, over-grazing and the use of bush fires for short-term gains. Land degradation now affects the lives of hundreds of millions of people and is hampering the development of countries. Stopping land degradation is a high priority in many areas of the world.

Although the production of energy (including biomass energy or bioenergy) is not a major global cause of land degradation (although the impact may be large locally and regionally), energy can play a major role in stemming and reversing the problem. Specifically, the introduction of modern biomass energy systems (e.g., for electricity generation) would put a sufficiently high market price on biomass to make it profitable to restore many of the potentially productive degraded lands to “energy farm quality” so as to be able to serve lucrative biomass energy markets. Thus, the energy-land degradation nexus appears “more a cure than a disease.”