Published in The Tablet 17 January 2004

THE State of the World 2004 report from the Worldwatch Institute inWashington DC concludes that "the world is consuming goods and services atan unsustainable pace with serious consequences for the well-being of peopleand planet". They tell us that consumption among the world's wealthyelites, and increasingly among the middle classes, has gone beyond satiatingneed. Now it is an end in itself.

Many of us, having seen the sales promotions slogan slapped all over one ofthe UK's major retailers - "I shop therefore I am" - would say amen to that.However, the report, published last week, then says that nearly half of alltoday's global consumers live in the developing world. "While the averageChinese or Indian consumes much less than the average North American orEuropean, China and India alone now boast a combined consumer class largerthan that in all of Western Europe," it points out. Worldwatch goes on toconcede that consumption is not in itself a bad thing and that the almost 3billion people worldwide who barely survive on less than $2 per day willneed to ramp up their consumption in order to satisfy basic needs for food,clean water and sanitation.

This, then, is a more subtle message. It is not consumption itself that iswrong, but excessive, unsustainable consumption. One in five of the 6billion of us who share this planet do not have access to clean water,almost as many go hungry most of the time, cannot access basic healthcareand cannot hope to see their children in school. Half of humanity hasaccess to no sanitation and, in an increasingly crowded planet, this is adanger to public health as well as a cause of constant humiliation.People bemoan globalisation, driven as it is by the integration of globalmarkets, but in the past 50 years more human beings have lifted themselvesout of poverty than did so in the previous 500 years. More people are livinglonger, have clean water, are literate and see their children survive. But becausethere are more people than ever before - just over 1 billion in 1990, 6billion now and 8-9 billion before world population stabilises in 2030-50,there are more abjectly poor people; and since the sufferingof poverty is experienced by individuals, there is more suffering in theworld than before. But the challenge now is that we know what has to bedone to eliminate extreme poverty from the human condition. For ourgeneration, it is a matter of will not capacity.

But if we are to do it, we need to advocate more consumption for the poor.All the nations of the world committed themselves at the Millennium Assemblyof the United Nations to working together to halve the proportion of peopleliving in extreme poverty by 2015. This means increasing the income of thepoor, giving all children access to school, basic healthcare systems forall, clean water and sanitation. We are on track to see 1 billion peoplelift themselves out of poverty by 2015. They will leave another billionbehind them, as the population continues to grow. And progress is unevenwith much of Asia - particularly China - moving forward and much of Africaslipping deeper into poverty. There are no grounds for complacency, butenormous progress is possible, if only we can keep the attention of theinternational community on this most important of all tasks in order to secure thefuture safety and stability of the world.

But we need to understand that the means for the greatest progress has been the opening up of markets,facilitating the investment of multinational companies and production ofmanufactured goods, clothing, toys and now even services, such as callcentres, based in the poorest countries and serving our desires andconsumption patterns. Of course, this is not the whole story. People haveto be fed by food grown at home, supplemented by imports bought with theproceeds of increased trade. Education, health, clean water and sanitationrequire competent government committed to raising taxes and managing thepublic finances in a way that includes and benefits all. But the engine ofeconomic growth necessary to reduce poverty, on a large scale, has beeninvestment generated by the increasingly integrated global economy.This is why much of the anti-globalisation rhetoric is misleading.

Investment and trade can be a major driver of poverty reduction, but thisdoes not mean that we can sit back and let the market rip. Investment canbe responsible or exploitative, our companies can be corrupt or beneficial,and governments in developing countries can manage the proceeds of growth tothe benefit of all or to feed the corrupt desires of greedy elites. Most ofthe investment comes from funds provided by our pension funds and othersavings. We need to take much more seriously our moral responsibility forthe use of our savings as well as the trade policy of our governments. Ittheir duty, in turn, to act through the United Nations to end theproliferation of civil war that is leading to a growth in poverty in failedstates across the world. And when we talk of spreading democracy, we shouldmean a system which taxes fairly and provides health and education for all,not a corrupt elite elected once every five years which indulges inmanipulation through bribery and buying up of the local media.

Of course the Worldwatch Institute is right when it says that we areplundering and polluting the world in an unsustainable way and that this ismaking the richer parts of the world "fatter, and not much happier". Butits deeper message is that if China, India and sub-Saharan Africa want todevelop like us, then the world is in disastrous trouble. They need toconsume more essentials and we need to change our consumption patterns if weare to hand on a decent and sustainable planet to our grandchildren. Wehave to share out more fairly the right to use the finite resources of theplanet. But we must never forget that for the 2.8 billion who live on lessthan the amount we subsidise each European cow per day, what is needed ismore consumption of food, water, bicycles, buses, washing machines, accessto telecommunications and power. We must never be tempted to view the worldthrough the lens of our excess and then proclaim that consumption is bad forthe world and must simply be reined in.

Clare Short is Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood and former Secretary ofState for International Development.