by Lester Brown

About the author: Lester Brown is the president of the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research organization that publishes an annual State of the World anthology.

Despite all the promises made at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro [a gathering of world leaders and environmental experts that focused on environmental conservation], the world has added 450 million people, the climate is changing and deforestation is even more serious a problem, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. Canada is losing a million hectares of forest a year, and so is Russia.

In spite of pledges to return to 1990 levels, carbon emissions have drastically increased—altering the earth’s climate. The U.S. is up 6%, Japan up 9%. Germany has reduced emissions by 10%, primarily by ending the industrial inefficiency in Eastern Germany. Russia has reduced its emissions by 28%, but economic...