Energy

To attain sustainable development in Latin Ameica and the Caribbean, where there is a strong dependence on commodity and food price development, priority attention towards energy, water, and food security is critical. In this literature and data analysis, we examined the baseline and trends of resource security based on the Water-Energy-Food Nexus concept. A performance index was developed to evaluate the progress in water, energy, and food security of the region, and a nexus-based index was developed to evaluate the inter-linkages of these resources. Finally, critical issues and challenges for sustainable development were addressed. Results showed that an unprecedented amount of infrastructure is needed to address increasing energy consumption. Emphasis should be placed on gradually replacing high carbon-sources that produce electricity with low carbon-energy systems and clean power production. Results also showed that water scarcity, given unequal distributions of rainfall, will be aggravated by changing climate conditions; improvements in water governance as well as water and sanitation provisions are needed. The region is a net exporter of food, at the expense of water availability and greenhouse gas emissions, and suffers from structural constraints. It is important to foster novel agricultural practices and sustainable food systems.

This paper discusses sustainability problems related to socioeconomic energy flows based upon the societal metabolism approach. Contrary to conventional energy statistics that only include energy used in technical devices, this approach considers all kinds of energy flows related to human societies, including nutritional energy flows of humans and domesticated animals. Based upon human population data and data on the pro capite energy metabolism of hunter-gatherers and agricultural societies as well as on statistical data on industrial energy flows a time series of the global socioeconomic energetic metabolism for the last 106 years and a scenario for the next 50 years is derived. These estimates show that the total energy input of mankind has risen by several orders of magnitude since the Neolithic revolution about 10,000 years ago. Whereas the energy input of agricultural societies prior to the advent of industrial societies about 200–300 years ago did not exceed 5% of global terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP), humanity’s energy input currently amounts to about 30% of global terrestrial NPP and is likely to surpass 50% in about 2050. This shows that the sheer magnitude of human-induced flows is historically unprecedented and poses at least two closely interrelated sustainability challenges: (1) a reduction of energy available to ecosystem processes that can be assessed using the concept of ‘human appropriation of net primary productivity’ and (2) the changes in the global carbon cycle resulting from land-use change and fossil-energy combustion.