Ecosystem damage to show true cost of Gulf spill
Paris (AFP) July 13, 2010 – The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster is likely to cost far more than cleanup and compensation for lost income once damage to ecosystems is factored in, a top expert said Tuesday. In an interview coinciding with a UN-sponsored report on the link between business and biodiversity, economist Pavan Sukhdev said the BP debacle underscores the need for a sea change in how the “natural capital” upon which human wellbeing depends is measured and valued. “The economic invisibility of ecosystem services and biodiversity — clean air, fresh water, healthy oceans, fertile soil, stable climates — must be addressed with urgency,” he said from London by phone. “We have to move into a society where both public and private wealth are recognized as important. But today, how many people understand ‘natural capital’ as compared to financial capital?” Part of the problem is not knowing how to quantify things that have long been assumed to exist in unlimited quantities. “We cannot manage what we do not measure, and we are not measuring either the value of nature’s benefits or the costs of their loss,” said Sukhdev, lead author of the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) for Business report. … The BP oil spill, which has been dumping an estimated 60,000 barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico every day, has emerged as a case study of how not to protect nature’s precious assets. Had government required a “holistic economic assessment” before drilling was allowed, the potential liability might have pushed BP to take more stringent safety measures, he argued. As things stand, “we only think about them after there is a problem, and then scurry about and chase our tails for a bit,” said Sukhdev, pointing to the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez, the supertanker that fouled Alaska’s once pristine Prince William Sound with some 11 million gallons of oil. … The crisis of collapsing ecosystems will only be addressed when the value of nature’s services are fully reflected in political and business decision making, Sukhdev said. “We are about half way there in terms of developing the toolkit. For people understanding that the toolkit exists and should be used, we are at three-to-five on a scale of 10,” he said. “As for actual implementation — between zero and two.” …
