Much of the debate so far has emphasised the priority that should be given to food security, land stabilization, energy availability and civil rights for minorities and women generally, if the basic preconditions for sustainable development are to be met. The richer nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, however tend to emphasise instead the 'big' global issues that appear to threaten them directly.These are climate change with its imponderable implications for agriculture , water supply and coastal protection, ozone depletion with its equally uncertain implications for skin cancer, eye cataracts and the functioning of phytoplankton on the surface of the sea, and loss of species and habitats with its attendant waste of potentially vital genetic resources for pharmaceuticals, food technology and pest control. Figure 2.1 summarises the framing of global environmental change, and in Chapter 19 we look more closely at the law and politics of multinational environmental agreements.