Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen
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| Founded | 1992 |
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| Website | www.wbgu.de |
The Scientific Advisory Council on Global Change (German: Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen, WBGU) is an independent, scientific advisory body to the German Federal Government, established in 1992 in the run-up to the Rio Earth Summit (UNCED). The Council's principal tasks are to:
The WBGU also comments on current events, such as the UN Climate Change Conferences (e.g., in Paris 2015), the UN Conference on Sustainable Development 2012 (Rio+20), the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (2015), the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) (2016) or Germany´s G20 presidency in 2017.
The momentum of urbanization and its impacts are so massive that we must face up to this trend. In view of the existing cognitive, technical, economic and institutional path dependencies, a policy of business as usual – i.e. an unstructured, quasi-automatic urbanization – would lead to a non-sustainable ‘world cities society’. Only if cities and urban societies are sufficiently empowered can they make use of the opportunities for sustainability and successfully follow the urban transformation pathways. The success or failure of the Great Transformation will be decided in the cities. The WBGU discusses the relevant conditions for the success of this transformation in this report.
Despite numerous international treaties and voluntary commitments, the seas are still being massively overfished, polluted and increasingly exploited as the Earth's last resort. In view of the oceans’ poor condition, the WBGU developed a long-term vision of the conservation and sustainable use of the blue continent: All marine zones with the exception of territorial waters should be declared as common heritage of mankind. In order to move closer to this ultimate goal for ocean governance, the WBGU also gives recommendations for action that link up with ongoing political processes, especially for two focal themes: food (sustainable fisheries and aquaculture) and energy from the sea. The report shows that sustainable stewardship of the oceans is urgently necessary, that the seas can be incorporated into a transformation towards a low-carbon, sustainable society, and that such a transformation can achieve substantial benefits worldwide both for a sustainable energy supply and for food security.
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