HONG KONG – Last week, the world marked the 51st EarthDay. This year’s theme – “Restore Our Earth” – was apt. As the COVID-19pandemic has reminded us, the effects of human activity on the planet do not respectborders. The Earth is a single living, self-regulatingsystem, and it demands a single, shared system of accountingthat balances at the global level. We need a one-Earth balance sheet.

In a 1946 telegram,Albert Einstein pleaded for funding to finance the “life-and-death struggle toharness the atom for the benefit of mankind and not for humanity’s destruction,”arguing that a “a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to surviveand move toward higher levels.” The same can be said about the environmentalcrisis humanity has created. Surviving it, and achieving a better, more sustainablefuture, requires “a new type of thinking.”

The old type of thinking produced a policy frameworkbased on the nation-state. Policymakers consider the material impact of theiractions on the local population, as measured by quantitative economic indicatorslike GDP. The United Nations System of National Accounting – devised in 1953,updated in 1993, and reaffirmed in 2008 – emphasizes the measurement of flows,such as income, expenditure, imports, and exports.

But even if there were enough data – such as on land valuationand intellectual property rights – national accounting systems would sufferfrom stock-flow inconsistencies. Under-measurement of many assets and liabilities,and of profits and losses, means that imbalances are often lumped into Errorsand Omissions (E&O), making their impact difficult to gauge.

At the one-Earth system level, all flows and stocks wouldhave to balance. This would make it far easier to measure the impact of eachcountry’s activity on the whole.

There is a traditionally economic dimension to thisimperative. After the 1997 Asian financial crisis, for example, it became clearthat efforts by Japanese firms and banks to restore their balance sheets led todepression or financial contagion elsewhere. In today’s ultra-integrated globaleconomy, there is no pretending that national balance sheets exist inisolation. And if one country’s balance sheet becomes too fragile, others willalso be put at risk.

But there is also a social dimension to thischallenge. Consider the growing global debt overhang. Every debt incurred has acorresponding asset, which is sustainable if it yields a social rate of returnlarger than the cost of the funds. Yet these social returns (or costs) arerarely measured – a significant blind spot for those devising policies to avoiddebt distress. A better approach would account for both the debt and the associatedasset, including the relevant costs and benefits. That requires a globalperspective, shaped by economic, social, andecological considerations.

More broadly, a one-Earth balance sheet would go along way toward mapping global imbalances. Some, such as income and wealth imbalances,are already obvious. But others, such as pollution and choke points in globalsupply chains – have not yet been mapped adequately.

Innovative initiatives by companies like VisualCapitalist.comsuggest the benefits of such maps. For example, by charting high-cost carbon-emittingconsumption patterns more clearly, the world would be better equipped toaddress them through targeted innovation and investment.

This points to another major benefit of the one-Earthbalance sheet: it may reveal areas where global or regional cooperation would deliverimportant, if indirect, benefits. For example, a system-wide perspective wouldprobably show that the world has a strong economic and ecological interest inacting collectively to help Africa manage challenges relating to population,food, energy, health, and security.

Perhaps most fundamentally, the one-Earth balancesheet would highlight that individual countries’ right to act in theirinterests comes with obligations. If a country, say, expands intensive land useor builds polluting factories, its national account would highlight the GDPbenefits, which might be deemed to outweigh the ecological costs. But theone-Earth account would show how externalities like deforestation and pollutiondamage human health, jobs, and the environment elsewhere, thereby changing thecalculation significantly.

Japan’s recent decisiongradually to release treated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclearplant into the Pacific provides a clear example of this tension. Japanese authoritiessay opposition is unscientific. But critics insist the release would damage theenvironment and violate human rights in surrounding countries.

Whatever the best solution is, the issue clearly doesnot affect only Japan. The country must, therefore, account for not only theinternal costs of finding an alternate solution, but also the externalobligations its chosen solution implies. Even if the wastewater itself provessafe, the decision could fuel mistrust that may end up producing large shared losses.

The pandemic has highlighted how collective challengesneed whole-of-government and whole-of-society solutions. It has also showed howa lack of complete, transparently shared data can lead to flawed and piecemeal approaches,as well as harmful misunderstandings.

We have enough economic and ecological data to preparea first draft of a one-Earth balance sheet, thanks partly to Big Data andsocial media. These data can and should be compiled collectively, much likeWikipedia. Indeed, given the one-Earth balance sheet’s multidimensional andmulti-disciplinary nature, it would be inappropriate for any one individual orgroup to take on the task. A global commission, convened under multilateral auspices,should spearhead this effort.

Creating a one-Earth framework will not be easy andwill undoubtedly run into nationalist resistance in many countries. But, likethe harnessing of the atom, this is a life-and-death struggle. And a one-Earthbalance sheet represents the “new type of thinking” we need to “survive andmove toward higher levels.”

本文首发于Project Syndicate，经作者同意转载。