One-third of World's Population Face Poverty by 2040: U.N. Study

United Nations - According to a UN report, the world's population is putting the security of food, water, and energy at risk.

By 2030, the report states, the world will need approximate 50% more food, 45% more energy, and 30% more water than is presently available.  If it didn't meet these requirements more than three-billion people will end up in poverty.  By the year 2040 that will be around one-third of the world's population, which at that time is estimated to be nine-billion people.

The United Nations Global Sustainability Panel said at the moment sustainable development efforts aren't happening fast or deep enough to change this path.  The panel has made 56 recommendations which would be needed to affect the course of possible collapse.  Some of the recommendations are: 

• Water and marine ecosystems should be managed more efficiently and there should be universal access to affordable sustainable energy by 2030.

• To make the economy more sustainable, carbon and natural resource pricing should be established through taxation, regulation or emissions trading schemes by 2020 and fossil fuel subsidies should also be phased out by that time.

• National fiscal and credit systems should be reformed to provide long-term incentives for sustainable practices as well as disincentives for unsustainable ones.

• Sovereign wealth and public pension funds, as well as development banks and export credit agencies should apply sustainable development criteria to their investment decisions, and governments or stock market watchdogs should revise regulations to encourage their use.

• Governments and scientists should also strengthen the relationship between policy and science by regularly examining the science behind environmental thresholds or "tipping points" and the United Nations should consider naming a chief scientific adviser or board to advise the organization, the report said.