Transcript Sustainable Development Outline • 1. Conceptualizing Sustainable Development • • • • • 2. History 3. Sources of unsustainability 4.

Sustainable Development
Outline
• 1. Conceptualizing Sustainable Development
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2. History
3. Sources of unsustainability
4. Responding to the problem
5. Barriers to Implementations
6. Conclusion.
Conceptualizing Sustainable Development
• Ecologists
Implies a production level that can be borne by the ecosystem
• Literal
SD interpreted as sustained growth; sustained change,
or simply successful development.
• other terminologies:
Eco-development – used to indicate that development should be
based upon an ECOnomic theory renewed by ECOlogical
considerations.
What is at stake here? -conceptualizing the problem
• a) Pre-industrial revolution societies
harmony with nature
• b) Industrial revolution
conquest of nature and question of limits to growth.
• Brundtland Commission [Env. and Dev.]
meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs.
2. History
• Global
• Indigenous people
– Native Americans: before undertaking something, one had to think of the effects on
seven generations to come
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– Herero: wildlife and rain –God looks down, sees wildlife thirsty, send rain
[conservation].
• 1972 Stockholm Conference [UN Conference on the Human
Environment] list of principles
• development and environmental concerns.
• 70s UNEP- ecodevelopment: =development that gave
equal attention to the adequate and rational use of
natural resources and to the applications of
technological styles.
• IUCN. 1980. World Conservation Strategy: Living
Resources Conservation for
Sustainable Development.
• 1992 Earth Summit
– Rio Declaration
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Principle 3 The right to development must be
fulfilled so as to equitably meet developmental and
environmental needs of present and future
generations.
• Agenda 21 =vehicle of sustainable dev.
• 1992. Commission on Sustainable Development [CSD]
created at Rio
to bring actors together to monitor
progress on implementation of the principles of
Agenda 21
Regional/National History
• EU
• 1987 Single European Act defined one of the Community’s
environmental objectives as the “prudent and rational utilization of
natural resources”.
• SEA stated that environmental policy should be guided by principles
of prevention and of sectoral policy integration.
• 1992 Maastricht Treaty on European Union called for “sustainable
and non-inflationary growth respecting the environment”.
• 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam addressed semantic confusion caused by
term ‘sustainable growth’
• by calling for ‘balanced and sustainable development of economic
activities,”.
• - Treaty of Amsterdam made sustainable development one of
objectives of the Community [meaning its now applicable to general
activities of EU not just environment].i.e. gave it a constitutional
commitment.
United States
• Gifford Pinchot: advocate of ‘wise use’ or planned
development of resources.
• Federal policy
– 1960 Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act
• “best meet the needs of the American
people…without impairment of the productivity
of the land.”
• 1993 President’s Council on Sustainable Development
[PCSD] –1999.
3. Sources of unsustainability
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a) context
– Is industrial development
necessarily incompatible with
ecological sustainability?
• If grow beyond what
biosphere can support, will
destroy it.
b) Above did not have to obtain;
but an interaction of certain
factors translate to a problem]
• Affluence [consumer
culture]
• Poverty [amidst affluencecatch up problem
• and population [explosion
]
c) Indicators of unsustainability
• Climate change [melting glaciers, rising sea levels, hundredyear storms, etc]
• Ecosystem degradation
• Others
• ozone layer hole, water scarcity, energy crisis,
demography [implications: meeting basic needs
and pressure on resources].
4. Responding to the problem
a)
Observe certain Principles
Constitutional/policy commitment [promotion of sust. dev]
–
Mainstream general activities, not just environment [EU].
• 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam made sustainable development one
of objectives of the Community
Incorporate ecological costs in pricing
–
ecotaxes
–
feebates [combination of fees and rebates]
• subsidizes cleanest products or practices via tax on dirtiest
ones.
– Sweden charged power plants for emissions and
redistributed revenues to the least polluting plants;
• 34 % reduction in offending emissions in 1992
compared to 1990.
–
Congestion pricing
• c) Incentive structures for sustainable practices
[remove perverse incentives and promote positive incentives]
– Agriculture: direct agricultural aid payments to farmers
are now linked to environmental criteria, and payments
are available for farmers who, on a voluntary and
contractual basis, protect the environment.[EU]
– Businesses that innovate
• Business dematerializing economic activity, which
can also reduce econ. physical size.
– Movie rental firm Netflix in 2007 began offering
its movies online.
• reduces need for packaging, stores, and trips
to rental store.
• Waste minimization – Interface carpet company.
d) Harness critical Agents of behavioral change
• Governments
– shape markets and design non-market policies for
sustainability.
• Sweden – regulatory authority to move country
away from fossil fuels.
– Government commission recommended that
by 2020, use of oil in road transport be cut by
40-50%, industry reduce its consumption of
oil by 25-40%, heating oil use be eliminated.
• Consumers
• market muscle, drive interest in green products
– What help do consumers need to execute this
role
Investors
• help advance
sustainability values
[Socially responsible
investments [e.g. ecotourism], microfinance.
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5. Barriers to Implementation
a) crisis in agent culture
• Attitudes of government
– [ effects of considerable space, untapped
resources?]
• concept of SD not a common lexicon
of governance in corridors of power
in U.S. in sense it is in EU. Hence, not
much support of declarations.
• corporations
– averse to big government, and limits to
exploiting natural resources has little
consumer taste
[e.g. vehicle ownership regarded as a
basic human right
b) Principles
• a) Epistemological-policy divide [politics of epistemology
of environmental degradation]
• political dimension
• Economics of environmental management
• -Social dimension
• -scientific dimension
• b) Institutional obstacles
– Environment is a cross-cutting theme [environmental
dimension to the work of all government departments.
– EU’s sectoral policy integration is a way forward.
• C) Questions about seriousness of environment problems
vs. legacy of fighting limits.
– “...Happily, though, the world does not need
saving…[I]t is ludicrous to suggest that the earth is in
grave peril”. The Economist, 1992.[On WSSD in
Johannesburg]
d) Problem of global cooperation
• no unanimity of opinion on, e.g. environmental standards
– U.S. Senator “we can no longer stand by while some US
manufacturers, …spend as much as 250 percent more on
environmental controls as a percentage of gross domestic
product than other countries…I see the unfair advantage
enjoyed by other nations employing the environment and
public health for economic gain…’
– assumption is that envi. regulations hurts U.S. alone because
other countries are lax, hence why averse to regulation.
• Aspersions/suspicions about the SD project
– “Global Apartheid System”
• 6. Conclusion.
– Cope with barriers?