Sustainable Development Flashcards
The Brandt Report
In 1980, the Brandt Report was published. This identified North-South differences in development and standards of living.
The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED)
In 1983, the UN set up the World Commission on Environment and Development. This is represented by 21 countries. This is not representative of the environment worldwide. Controlled by the global north
“Many forms of development erode the environmental resources upon which they must be based, and environmental degradation can undermine economic development. Poverty is a major cause and effect of global environmental problems.” (WCED 1987: 3)
The resources in which development depends will be undermined. Development strategies were not sustainable- they were causing degradation.
Mitchell (1997)
Argues that the term ‘sustainable development’ is a slippery concept
Redclift (1997)
Argues that its hard not to approve of the concept of sustainable development, but it is full of contradictions
Clemencon (2012)
RIO+20 Agreement
Objectives:
a) Securing renewed political commitment for sustainable development
b) Assessing the progress and implementation gaps in meeting previous commitments (recognised that previous meetings had not put enough plans into action)
c) Addressing new and emerging challenges
Focused on developing ‘green economies’ to achieve sustainable development and lift people out of poverty
Outcomes of the conference:
a) The UN wanted to map out ways to reach a green economy
b) Countries of the global south wanted actual sustainable development goals
c) The shift to green economies erodes social development- the global south rejected it (why focus on the economy when society is integral to development)
The UK and US’s leaders did not attend
Criticisms the outcome of RIO+20:
a) Only reiterates promises made elsewhere
b) Fails to lay out a coherent roadmap
c) Fails to define binding targets with specific deadlines
BUT it did reflect a changing political reality in international negotiation- developing countries playing a much more assertive role in pushing poverty eradication as the main priority.
Adams (2008)
The RIO conference and World Summit on Sustainable Development defined and consolidated the international agenda for the 21st century
Outcomes of the RIO conference:
The Rio Declaration- a consensus document listing 27 principles for sustainable development
Agenda 21- describes the actions that promote sustainability (none of which were mandatory)
RIO broadened the recognition of grass root groups (particularly women). BUT, the conference also emphasized the distance between the powerful and wealthy NGOs and the ‘grass roots’ in the sense of groups formed among the poor in the developing world.
The distinction between the views of industrialized North and the underdeveloped South became more obvious. There was contention between…
a) The north prioritizing atmospheric change and tropical deforestation
b) The south arguing that poverty and the consequences of poverty was more important to address
The Rio Conference established mainstream sustainable development thinking. BUT it failed of itself to achieve binding or timetable commitment to systematic change in national or international policy.
Elliot (2006)
In 1987, the Brundtland Report used the term ‘sustainable development’ for the first time. It was defined as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.
However, during the 90s the term ‘sustainable development’ was debated and contested: concerning both the meaning and practice. For some, its meaning has been redefined so many times and used to cover so many aspects of society that there is doubt that anything good can ever be agreed . For others, the very act of contestation is what makes sustainable development important.
The challenges of understanding sustainable development is evident even in the brief analysis of the definition provided in the Brundtland Report:
a) It immediately shows that there is a potential conflict of interests between generations
b) Challenging to define the notions of needs and limits
c) What is being passed onto the next generation? Is this solely capital, or does this involve something more?
d) What and how are limits set- technology, society or ecology?
e) Does what one group of people define as their ‘need’ put other groups of people at a disadvantage?
Kallis et al. (2014)
Argues that de-growth is first and foremost, a critique of growth. “It calls for the decolonization of public debate from the idiom of economism and for the abolishment of economic growth as a social objective.
Beyond that, de-growth signifies also a desired direction, one in which societies will use fewer natural resources and will organize and live differently than today.”
There are four core arguments in the de-growth approach:
1) Economic activity is rooted in material and environmental transformation
2) Economic growth leads to accelerated environmental transformation
3) Economic growth does not work for everyone
4) Managed de-growth is possible and desirable
BUT, how effective is it to tell developing countries that economic growth is not the best way of developing? It has been the norm for so long. The notion of de-growth would seem absurd and backwards.
Kallis (2011)
This article defends the proposal of sustainable de-growth. A starting premise is that resource and CO2 limits render further growth of the economy unsustainable.
If de-growth is inevitable, the question is how it can become socially sustainable, i.e. a prosperous and stable, rather than a catastrophic, descent.
a) Pricing mechanisms alone are unlikely to secure smooth adaptation. A full ensemble of environmental and redistributive policies is required, including policies for a basic income, reduction of working hours, environmental and consumption taxes and controls on advertising.
b) Policies like these, that threaten to “harm” the economy, are less and less likely to be implemented within existing market economies, whose basic institutions (financial, property, political, and redistributive) depend on and mandate continuous economic growth.
c) An intertwined cultural and political change is needed that will embrace de-growth as a positive social development and reform those institutions that make growth an imperative.
Sustainable de-growth is therefore not just a structuring concept; it is a radical political project that offers a new story and a rallying slogan for a social coalition built around the aspiration to construct a society that lives better with less.
Harvey (2014)
“The World Bank is fond of reassuring us that a rising tide of economic development is bound to lift all boats. Maybe a truer metaphor would be that exponentially rising sea levels and intensifying storms are destined to sink all boats.”
Gills (2017)
Argues that the SDGs understand that all places around the world are now interlocked into a mutual process of development.
Moreover, Gills also argues that in focusing on specific countries, rather than developing nations as a whole, the SDGs transcend the idea that this is a ‘aid-financed gift to the poor’ BUT an activity that all countries can participate in defining.
Sachs (2017)
Argues that the immodest era of expansive modernity is officially over with the formulation of the SDGs- it seeks to secure a minimum for a dignified life universally.
Castree (2014)
Anthropocene originally proposed by Crutzen and Stoermer (2000) when they said that the Earth had changed from the ‘boundary conditions’ that were characteristic with the last 12,000 years.
Is the Anthropocene a ‘keyword’- a term central to social discourse in the academic, public, political and commercial domains alike. Anthropocene idea cuts across the social/natural barrier. It is an encompassing concept, with greater reach than terms such as ‘nature’, and greater connotations than ‘global environmental change’.
Rockström et al. (2009)
The concepts of the planetary boundaries and the Anthropocene span over a great variety of disciplines, and they encourage us to consider political, economic and cultural systems which prevail (especially in the West) as there could be serious negative effects in the future
Steffen et al. (2007)
Critiques of the concept of the ‘Anthropocene’
1) They assume ‘humanity’ as an undifferentiated whole
“Inequality, commodification, imperialism, patriarchy, racism and much more – all have been cleansed from ‘Humanity’, the Anthropocene’s point of departure.”
This is neo-Malthusian because concerns about population and movement are decoupled from power relations.
2) They explain Anthropocene solely as the result of specific technological developments (steam engine, internal combustion) “rather than interpenetrated relations of power, technology and capital” (Moore 2017)
3) They construct scarcity as Natural, rather than social.
4) They neglect to consider the very mode of social organisation in which these technologies were developed
“This prevents us from seeing the accumulation of capital as a powerful web of interspecies dependencies; it prevents us from seeing how those interdependencies are not only shaped by capital, but also shape it; and it prevents us from seeing how the terms of that producer/product relation change over time.”
