Chap 1 Introduction
Chap 1 Introduction
Development
Introduction
History – Assessing the principle
Learning Outcome
🠶 History SD
🠶 The beginning
🠶 Stockholm
🠶 Agenda 21
🠶 CSD :- Comission on
Sustainable Development ;
CBD :- Convention on
Biological Biodiversity ,
UNFCC:- United Nation
Framework of Convention
on Climate Change.
🠶 Rio plus 10
🠶 Johannesburg
🠶 Millennium development
goals
Setting the
stage
► Malthus – Principle of population
“Population when unchecked
increased in a geometric ratio
and subsistence for man in an
arithmetical ratio”
► Renewed Malthusians
► Club of Rome - Limits to
growth – Donella
Meadows et al
► Lester Brown –
Worldwatch Institute –
warnings of immediate
collapse
(https://m.youtube.com/w
atch?v=DO2xl39nBAA)
► Remind us that sooner or later
unchecked consumption will
get us in trouble
Limits to Growth
Setting the stage
🠶 Ester Boserup – believed “necessity is the mother of inventions” –
increased population pressures act as an incentive to the
development of new technology and food production
🠶 Julian Simon, Wilfred Beckerman – limits only set by human ingenuity
not resources
🠶 Lomborg – assessing Simons claims
🠶 Who to believe?
Long run vs short run
🠶 Originally used in
🠶 Fisheries “maximum sustainable yield”
🠶 Forestry “maximum sustainable cut”
🠶 Hydrology “maximum sustainable pumping rate”
Renewable Resources
Population growth
► Logistic or density
dependent growth
► Upper limit to the
ultimate size
► Determined by carrying
capacity
► What defines CC?
► Growth curve u-shaped
Original Equation
🠶 St = St-1 + Gt - Et
🠶 Extraction affects stock
size.
🠶 Sustainable yield:
extraction equal to
growth
🠶 G=E
Renewable resources
🠶 Maximum
sustainable yield
(MSY)
🠶 Complex dynamics
- stock possibly
grows drastically
with decreased
harvest
Sustainability?
“Sustainable development
is development that meets
the needs of the present
without compromising the
ability of future generations
to meet their own needs"
Brundtland Commission
“Our common future” 1987
Dissecting
🠶 Robert Repetto
“The core idea of sustainability is that current decisions
should not impair the prospects for maintaining or
improving future living standards. This implies that our
economic system should be managed so we can live
off the dividends of our resources”.
🠶 Resources – all resources
Mohan Munasinghe
D. Pearce
► Sustainable development is (1)
development subject to a set of
constraints which set resource harvest
rates at levels not higher than managed
natural regeneration rates and (2) use of
the environment as a waste sink on the
basis that waste disposal rates should not
exceed rates of managed or natural
assimilative capacity of the ecosystem
Quantifiable
🠶 Robert Repetto
“The core idea of sustainability is that current decisions
should not impair the prospects for maintaining or
improving future living standards. This implies that our
economic system should be managed so we can live
off the dividends of our resources”.
🠶 Resources – all resources
Ecological approach to SD
Ed Barbier
🠶 SD is directly concerned with increasing the standard
of living of the poor, which can be measured in terms
of increased food, real income, education, health
care, water supply, sanitation and only indirectly
concerned with economic growth at the aggregate.
Sustainable Vs
Unsustainable
🠶 Sustainable development
vs.
🠶 Sustainable production
🠶 Sustainable extraction
🠶 Sustainable use
🠶 Sustainable yield
To consider
Source:-UNFCC, 2020
Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD)
🠶 Binding
🠶 Signed by 156 nations initially
🠶 Deals with:
🠶 Economic exploitation of genetic
material and biodiversity
conservation
🠶 Creating protective areas and
draw up national plans for
conservation
Convention on forest
management
🠶 Non-binding
🠶 Short statement on principles for a global
consensus on forest management
Commission for SD
► Was established by the General Assembly to
monitor and facilitate efforts to implement the
diverse goals of the earth summit – in particular
agenda 21.
► Supposed to promote dialog and encourage
partnerships among governments, UN agencies
and the NGO community.
► Lacks both power to make binding resolutions and
its own financial resources to fund programs.
► Reports directly to ECOSOC
Commission on Sustainable
Development - functions
1. Provides a forum for the discussion of a wide range of subjects
related to SD. Supposed to strengthen the participation of
groups such as NGO’s indigenous peoples, local
governments, workers women and the young.
3. After Rio
► 1993 First meeting of the CSD
► 1995 World Summit for Social
development
► 1996 The Summit of the Americas on SD
► 1997 UN GA review of the Earth Summit
progress
► 2000 UN Millennium Summit – declaration
of the Millennium Goals
► 2001 EU sustainable development
strategy
► 2002 Rio plus 10 - Johannesburg
Millennium Declaration
🠶 http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
🠶 The eight Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) form a blueprint agreed
to by all the world´s countries and all
the world´s leading development
institutions.
The Millennium Goals
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Achieve gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
• Integrate the principles of sustainable
development into country policies and programs
• reverse loss of environmental resources
• Reduce by half the proportion of people without
sustainable access to safe drinking water
8. Develop a global partnership for sustainability
The Millennium Goals
🠶 http://www.un.org/millenniumgo
als/
► Johannesburg Declaration
► Targets set for economic factors and poverty
reduction – e.g.
►Halve by 2015 the population living on less than 1$
a day
►Ensure by 2015 all children complete primary
education
► Non-quantitative targets for environment
►Substantially increase global share of renewable
energy sources
►Achieve by 2010 a significant reduction in the
current rate of loss of biodiversity
Johannesburg
🠶 Focus:
🠶 Social pillar of SD
🠶 Fight poverty
🠶 Mutually enhancing poverty and environmental
degradation is one of the factors preventing SD
🠶 Address equitable access to resources
🠶 Debt relief programs
🠶 Increasing ODA
Source:-
https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/oda/white/2012/html/topics/topi
The three dimensions
🠶 The three conferences defined
the three dimensions
🠶 Stockholm (Environment)
🠶 Rio (Economics)
🠶 Johannesburg (Social)
Move towards fostering
synergy
🠶 International community seems to agree on the
general goals of SD
🠶 Efforts remain fragmented – e.g. little link
between various environmental agreements
🠶 Increased cooperation required between
various agreements (e.g. CBD and UNFCCC) –
and there seems to be willingness to do this.
Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs)
• January 2015: post-2015
development agenda.
• At the UN Sustainable
Development Summit in
September 2015
• https://youtu.be/0XTBYMfZy
rM