Lecture 4 Sustainable Development

Question 1

What is sustainable development

Answer 1

Sustainable development is development that meets
the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
It contains within it two key concepts:

• the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and
• the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.”

Question 2

Dimensions of sustainable development

Answer 2

• Social
  
  • standard of living, education, community
• Economic
  
  • profit, cost savings, economic growth, R&D
• Political
  
  • natural resources use, environmental management
    use, pollution prevention (air, water, land, waste)

Question 3

Short history of sustainability debate

and actors: Where it all began

Answer 3

• Malthus vs Boserup
• 1962: Silent Spring (Rachel Carson) -> effects of
  insecticide on biodiversity
• 1972: Club of Rome’s Limits to growth
• 1974: E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful
• 1983: World Commission on Environment and
  Development (WCED)

Question 4

Short history of sustainability debate and

actors II: Introduction to Sustainability

Answer 4

• Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland
  Report, from the United Nations World Commission on
  Environment and Development (WCED) was published
  in 1987.
• The Earth was in a terrible state during that time.
• It was the first time the world community saw the
  importance of Sustainable Development through
  resource management.
• We realized that there are limits to our
  growth and the resources we use.

Question 5

Short history of sustainability debate and

actors III: Global Environmental Governance

Answer 5

• 1992: Rio Earth Summit and Agenda 21.
  Each country agreed to formulate a detailed national
  sustainable development strategy (NSDS). Local
  Agenda 21 encourages local governments to facilitate
  involvement in environmental decision making
  processes.
• 1994: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change:
  
  • UNFCCC
• 1997: Kyoto Protocol -> ratified in 2005.
  
  • Countries who signed the treaty pledged to cut their
    GHGs by 5.2% by 2012
  • Establishing CO2 as a commodity
• 2002: World Summit for Sustainable Development
  
  • More focus on renewable energy.
• IEAs, MEAs, various actors: World Bank, WTO, MNCs, TNCs, NGOs, Civil society, national governments, local communities, etc.

Question 6

Short history of sustainability debate

and actors IV: Current trends

Answer 6

• 2015: Sustainable Development Goals
• 2016: The Paris Agreement
  
  • “The Paris Agreement’s central aim is to strengthen
    the global response to the threat of climate change
    by keeping a global temperature rise this century
    well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial
    levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature
    increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”
• Nationally Determined Contributions
• Annex I, Annex II and non-annex countries

Question 7

Hardin’s tragedy of the commons

Answer 7

• If human population continues to grow, the
  commons will eventually be depleted.
• “Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.”
  
  • Hardin suggested two solutions:
  • Government control -> don’t allow other people to
    make use of natural resources.
  • Privatization -> if it is privately owned, others can’t
    make use of it.

Question 8

Environmental Kuznet’s Curve

Answer 8

• The more an economy grows, the worse environmental degradation.
• After the economy reaches a tipping point, it improves the environment.
• Europe heavily polluted in the beginning of 1900s, now it is trying to improve environmental conservation.

Question 9

Group 3: Governing the commons (forests, lakes, sea, etc.)

Answer 9

• Communities, stakeholders, institutions, and other
  groups of people have successfully proven
  throughout time that we are not doomed depleting our
  natural resources or commons.
• What are the success factors for successfully
  governing the commons?

Question 10

8 principles for managing the commons (Elinor Ostrom):

first 4

Answer 10

1. Define clear group/commons boundaries.
   
   • Who is part of the group managing the commons?
   • What should be managed?
2. Match rules governing use of common goods to local needs and conditions.
   
   • Are there rules in place? Are those rules adapted to
     local needs?
3. Ensure that those affected by the rules can participate in modifying the rules.
   
   • Stakeholders are able to influence the rules and
     change them.
4. Make sure the rule-making rights of community members are respected by outside authorities.
   
   • Governments need to acknowledge the group
     making the rules, and respect them

Question 11

8 principles for managing the commons (Elinor Ostrom):

second 4

Answer 11

5. Develop a system, carried out by community members, for monitoring members’ behavior.
   
   • Monitoring the commons is very important.
6. Use graduated sanctions for rule violators.
   
   • Rule violators need to be punished.
7. Provide accessible, low-cost means for dispute resolution.
   
   • When people have a dispute with each other, there
     need to be mechanism to solve these disputes.
8. Build responsibility for governing the common
   resource in nested tiers from the lowest level up to
   the entire interconnected system.
   
   • Global, national, and local systems are
     interconnected. We need to pay attention to that.

Question 12

History of environmental management in

Global South

Answer 12

• untill 1970s a lot of exploitation (forest enterprises)
• 1980s the global north began conservation.
• present: Stakeholders that plea for restoration
  
  • local communities, universities, think tanks, NGOs,
    civil society.

Question 13

What is environmental governance? (Fakier et al 2005).

Answer 13

“Environmental governance refers to the processes of
decision-making involved in the control and management of the environment and natural resources. It is also about the manner in which decisions are made – are they made behind closed doors or with input from the broader public? Principles such as inclusivity, representivity, accountability, efficiency and effectiveness, as well as social equity and justice, form the foundation of good governance. “

Question 14

Why is environmental governance

important?

Answer 14

environmental challenges on different levels
- on global level we have global warming,
- on local level we could have deforestation and land
degradation,
- on city level we have pollution and over-urbanization.

Question 15

Difference between environmental management and governance

Answer 15

Management: activities which are necessary for managing the environment, such as ecosystem management, conservation, adaptive management, and so on.
- What should be done?

Governance: who decides which management form we
choose? How do different institutions, organizations, and the State cooperate? Who makes decisions? Who is
responsible? How does the State deal with NGOs,
associations, communities, government agencies, and
international organizations?
- Who is doing it? And how are they doing it?

Question 16

Criticism on sustainable development

Answer 16

• Guiding principles of sustainable development often relied on: technology, economic growth, and effective management -> no structural change.
• Unclear what sustainable development really is: “Sustainable development is effectively anything that one wants it to be” (O’Riordan 1995 in: Hopper 2012).
• More than 72 definitions of sustainable development.
• Perspective of sustainable development too much dominated by the global North.
• Knowledge gap between sub-tropical and tropical South and temperate and artic climate North.

Question 17

Criticism on sustainable development II

Answer 17

- Reformist/Technocratic solution vis-à-vis radical/ 
   ecocentric environmentalism (next class we make it 
   even more interesting!)

• Green grabbing and commodification of nature
• Strong lobbying of MNCs and other interest groups
• Population growth control: remains a sensitive issue.
• Political ecology of sustainable development & environmental justice
• Poverty and the environment -> Blaikie (1985): ‘desperate ecocide’.
• Big gap between development studies and environmental studies
• Race to the bottom and pollution havens.
• The link between globalization and environmental management/governance remains problematic.

Question 18

What is endogenous development?

Answer 18

• Endogenous development is based on local communities’ own criteria of development
• Peoples’ worldviews and livelihoods as starting point for development.
• Balance between material, spiritual and social well-being.
• Endogenous development is mainly based on local
  strategies, values, institutions and resources
• Empowering local communities to control their own
  development process.
• Bottom-up approach
• Endogenous growth theory: can be on various levels

Question 19

Exploring the concept of post-development

Answer 19

• Modernization focused too much on “westernisation”
• Getting rid of ”unwanted” cultural traits.
• Alternative forms of development – favoring local and
  popular non-Western cultures and domains of
  knowledge.
• Stressing the importance of culture.
• “The greatest political promise of minority cultures is
  their potential for resisting and subverting the
  axiomatics of capitalism and modernity in their
  hegemonic form’’ (1995b, page 225).

Question 20

Criticism on post-development

Answer 20

• Only two flavors: western culture and the “rest”
• Romanticizing alternatives to development
• Dichotomy between pristine grassroots cultures
  on the one hand and the homogenizing impulses
  of a universal Western culture on the other -> not
  doing justice to local complexities
• “a paradigm of development with identity has
  emerged”

Question 21

Indigenous and local communities

Answer 21

• Many communities in the world depend directly
  on natural resources, such as forests, grass lands,
  water-resources, and so on.
• These communities have lived in ecosystems
  and forests for thousands of years.
• They have developed their own ways of lives,
  culture, language, history, and ways of managing the
  natural environment.
• They do not always use “scientific” knowledge
  to manage the natural environment.
• Often victim of discrimination, marginalization
  and domestication.

Question 22

Indigenous and local communities (part II)

Answer 22

Someone is an indigenous person if:
- They originally come from that area.
- Have their own culture, identity, language and
customs.
- Common history.
- Many indigenous people depend on natural
resources.
- Different culture from rest of society.
- Sometimes live isolated

China does not recognize indigenous people. In
China, we have ethnic groups.

Each country have their own definition of indigenous
people: Tribal people, aboriginal, natives, etc.

Question 23

Community-based resource management

Answer 23

• Communities who depend on natural resources (such
  as indigenous people or local communities) decide
  how the natural environment is managed.
• They do that together with government agencies,
  NGOs and other stakeholders.

Local communities can:
- Identify the problem
- Find a way to solve the problem
- Manage the environment
- Make rules and enforce the rules.
- Punish people who do not follow or violate the
  rules
- Legally own natural resources.
- Monitor their activities.