G8

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Introduction

It’s a true pleasure to welcome you all to the third BSMUN. My

name is David Cambronero and I’ll be your chair for this committee,
accompanied by my co-chair, Matilda Treherne-Thomas. We will do
our very best to make this committee a true success. We really do
hope you come to this committee with a positive and participative
attitude, with fresh ideas and solutions!

We will be dealing in this committee with a topic of great

importance, environmental management. Aspects as carbon
reduction, energy saving, the different types of resources and their
use, and others will be addressed by the delegates of each nation.
The leaders of the countries present in this committee will have to
come to an agreement about a way to improve and promote
environmental management, as well as to promote popular
knowledge about the issue.

My co-chair and I wish nothing but the best of luck to you all. If
you have any doubts or questions about the committee please do ask
us. See you soon.

Chair: David Cambronero Sánchez

Davidcamsan16@gmail.com

Co-Chair: Matilda Treherne-Thomas

Topic Background

Experts agree that the world’s ecosystems are under more stress than
ever before, which makes economic and social development a real challenge.
According to the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, humans have been
responsible for considerable and mostly irreversible loss of biodiversity on Earth.
The G8 members wish, because of this environmental degradation, to ensure
future sustainable development. The G8 wants neither to stop human innovation
nor to keep abusing the natural resources at such a rate.

Because of these reasons, the G8 invites the G20 to the 2011 summit to
discuss the need of ecosystem management based of the world’s current needs.
Ecosystem management is defined by the International Union for Conservation of
Nature as “a process that integrates ecological, socio-economic, and
institutional factors into comprehensive analysis and action in order to
sustain and enhance the quality of the ecosystem to meet current and
future needs.” The G8 believes that human kind must protect the ecosystems
partly because of the different “services” they provide.

There are three different types of ecosystems noteworthy, marine/coastal,

freshwater and terrestrial. Some commonly known marine/coastal ecosystems
problems are over fishing and oil spills. Freshwater ecosystems suffer a lot from
water shortage. Terrestrial ecosystems face problems such as deforestation,
which in time, raises the amount of carbon dioxide in the environment.
Bloc Positions

Germany

Germany has been a strong country environmentally speaking. According

to the 2005 millennium ecosystem assessment, Germany’s situation isn’t as
dramatic as other countries’. Nevertheless, Germany still has some aspects,
which need to be regulated by its environmental policy. These include the
emission Carbon dioxide, nitrates and other kinds of pollutants.
Although Germany’s overall situation isn’t as dreadful as some other
countries’, it does suffer from some ecological threats such as groundwater
pollution and the deposition of pollutants into freshwater ecosystems. Also, it
needs to worry about the heavy load of nutrients in all ecosystem components.

USA
The USA is one of the most industrialized countries in the World. It’s
because of this same reason that it’s one of the biggest polluters in the world. Its
carbon dioxide emission rate is the second largest, right after China’s. Its
interest, although it is for sustainable development, hasn’t been as noteworthy or
supportive as other countries’.
The USA is one of the two countries which still haven’t signed the Kyoto
protocol. USA is strongly linked as well to climate change since it releases vast
amounts of greenhouse gases because 86% percent of it energy comes from
fossil fuels.

Canada
Canada has been a strong ally to ecological development. It recently
created a new strategy for sustainable development, the Federal Sustainable
Development Strategy (FSDS). Canada has been honest with the world and
understands which are the problems it must tackle to achieve what it wants.
Canada has identified issues such as air quality, water quality and
availability, and of course, it struggles to protect its natural heritage. In the FSDS,
Canada has made it clear that its first step is to focus on environmental
sustainability.

France
Although France does have certain environmental issues such as acid
rain, air pollution, water pollution, and agricultural runoffs, it does show interest in
helping the environment and rectifying its issues.
France has signed in the past some protocols regarding environmental
aspects such as the tropical timber agreement 1994. It has also signed and
ratified the Kyoto protocol.
Guiding Questions and Points

The following are questions to help the delegates get an idea of what they must
look for, although they should not limit themselves to it.

1) Should the G8 committee countries’ unfulfilled environmental promises be

held up against them?
2) Do the geopolitical boundaries between nations apply to borders between
shared ecosystems? If so, who should be held responsible for the
degradation of the ecosystem? For example, country “X” and Country “Y”
share a certain lake. Country “Y” is polluting the part of the lake which is
its own, nonetheless, the contamination has reached such a point that it’s
spreading to Country “X’s” side, so who should be held responsible?
Country “X” for not taking the proper precautions? Who should pay? What
should be done?
3) What new goals can be set to promote ecosystem management?
4) What can be done to encourage people outside the committee (the
popular populations) to help?
5) What about the economic cost to ecosystem management?
Recommended Websites.

http://www.fsd.nl/naturevaluation/72219
http://www.ufz.de/data/Study%20MA%20and%20Germany_summary6184.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_the_United_States
http://www.ec.gc.ca/ddsd/default.asp?lang=En&n=E19EE696-1
http://bmun.net/sites/default/files/documents/UNEP.pdf
http://www.unep.org/
http://www.unep.org/pdf/brochures/EcosystemManagement.pdf
http://classweb.gmu.edu/dparker3/econ_present/Swallow_byShah.pdf