Concept of the Sustainable Development - Essay Example

CONCEPT OF THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND THE COMPONENT OF A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT APPROACH TO ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY Concept of the Sustainable Development and the Component of a Sustainable Development Approach to Environmental Policy 1. Introduction Sustainable development has been a global issue in the recent years which has created lot of debate among policy makers, academicians and among the common man itself. It has created serious challenges to the global society and business. According to World Bank (1987, p43) sustainable development is defined as “development that meets the needs of future generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Based on this concept, the objectives of economic development, poverty alleviation and sound environmental management need to go together and are not mutually exclusive (Pezzey, 1992).It has become widely accepted that development strategies of countries aimed at economic growth and poverty alleviation need to consider the state of the natural resources in these nations also since future growth depends on this. The concept of sustainable development has gained particular importance due to the growing concern on climate change and associated environmental issues all over the world. Consequently, sustainable development has become an integral part if the environmental policy of governments and businesses. In this essay, the concept of sustainable development, its importance and guiding principles as well as the component of sustainable development approach to environment policy are discussed. This essay is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the context of sustainable development, section 3 discusses the guiding principles and importance of sustainable development, Section 4 discusses the sustainable development approach to environmental policy in detail. Section 5 concludes the essay. 2. The Context of Sustainable Development The selfish man made activities without considering the environmental impact has been an issue of great concern from the ancient days. This has been worsened by rapid industrial development, population growth and technological innovations (Liu, 2002). The main consequences of the industrial development included resource depleting, energy intensive and pollutant generating activities and redistribution of important substances in natural environment like carbon, sulphur, heavy metals and chlorine generated by fossil fuel burning, underground mines and thermal process respectively. The main greenhouse gases are water vapour, CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and halocarbons (IPCC,2007a).Among these, though water vapour is the main contributor to greenhouse gas effect, , the rise in water vapour is not directly a man made activity (IPCC, 2007a). Rise in CO2, which contributes about 4 to 36 % of greenhouse effect is mainly due to anthropogenic activities like usage of fossil fuels and deforestation. Though the concentration of methane, nitrous oxide and halocarbons are very low in atmosphere, they contribute to 21times, 200-300 times and 3000 to 13000 times that of CO2 respectively(BBC no date). Though the origin of methane is mainly a biological phenomenon, the causes for the origin of other gases are manmade like fossil fuel burning, air pollution, fertilizers etc. Due to all these activities, the nature’s capacity to bear has been exceeded resulting in a disruption of environmental balance. The main consequences of this include natural calamities, floods, disasters, new illnesses, global warming, species extinction, ozone holes etc. The factors like not having essential knowledge on the environmental impact of the human activities due to the focus upon other developmental objectives as well as the huge inertia in human society have resulted in the aggravation of the environmental crisis. As a solution to the environmental problems, sustainable development concept has been accepted worldwide by governments and businesses. 3. The Guiding Principles of Sustainable Development The guiding principles of sustainable development are classified into ethical principles and operating principles (Chiras, 1991).The ethical principles are the following. (1)Natural rules compliance is needed since men being a part of nature are subject to rules of nature. Otherwise, it will lead to their own destruction (2)Cooperation with natural forces by humans is needed and not domination over natural forces (3) Fair sharing of limited resources is needed due to the need of these resources by everybody and are closely interrelated (4)Material and intellectual needs have to be balanced properly to reduce the environmental impact based on environment friendly practices (5) Global cooperation and consensus is needed to reduce the environmental problems since irrespective of nation of origin, all human beings are subject to the environmental issues. Hence, global cooperation and consensus is needed to tackle this issue effectively. The operating principles of sustainable development are the following (Liu, 2002). (1)Population control is necessary for a sustainable future due to the rapidly growing population seen in many nations (2)Unnecessary energy consumption is necessary for sustainable development (3) The waste products can be recycled and used and use them as energy (4) Need for using renewable energy sources like wind, solar energy, trees etc to be preferred over using non renewable energy sources like plastic, fossil fuels, synthetic cloth etc. Nuclear energy is considered to have the lowest lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions when compared to the other technologies generating electricity. Reports show that the emission of CO2 from nuclear power is only about 25g equivalent per kWh compared to the emission by fossil fuel chains of 450 to 1 250 gCO2-equiv./kWh(Nuclear Energy Agency,2006) Moreover, it gives a very strong and reliable base load output (Weisser et al , 2008). Other advantages are suggested as less environmental burdens like acid rains, ozone layer depletion or urban smog and strict monitoring of the radioactive emission (Nuclear Energy Agency, 2006). According to the proponents of nuclear energy, disposal of wastes from nuclear plants is not very problematic when compared to the disposal of large volumes of wastes from the coal energy system (Nuclear Energy Agency, 2006). (5) Incorporation of both economic and environmental issues thus creating a world win –win situation is needed. In addition to these, some natural rules for sustainability have been identified as mechanisms through which nature purifies air and water, the natural mechanisms of supplying nutrients to all species on earth like carbon and nitrogen cycles, existence of food chains or food webs in which men are at the top as well as decomposer food chains (Chiras, 1991; Peavy etal, 1995; Liu, 2002 etc). 4. Sustainable Development Approach to Environmental Policy The sustainable development approach has become an essential part of environmental policy in businesses and the policies of national governments. In this regard, the main initiatives by corporate managers include inclusion of environmental vision along with other managerial issues into corporate culture, integration of environmental policy and environmental management system, continuous monitoring of the environment management system and careful decision on strategic issues by considering environmental impacts also(Liu,2002). At a global level, sustainable development has gained importance ever since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992). Based on the UNFCC (1992) Article 3.4, sustainable development needs to be integrated with national development policies by considering the need for economic development to address climate change problems (Winkler et al, 2002). In this convention, the focus has been more on reduction of greenhouse gas emission and their targets than on sustainable development. After this, much discussion has been done on the links between sustainable development and climate change and the inclusion of sustainable development concept in environmental policy. The sustainable development requirements approach to environmental policy started in developed nations first. Reports show that greenhouse gas emissions are going on rising with the ongoing economic reforms that aim at improving economic growth (Mc Kibbin, 2004). Based on economic theory, there are two main mitigation measures to reduce the greenhouse gas emission. One is a tradable permit system for emission rights and the other is taxing carbon emissions (McKibbin, 2004). Studies have shown that the permit system for emission rights developing nations will result in a rise in costs in terms of sacrificing economic growth since most economic activities rely on energy here. The shift from cheap fossil fuels to expensive non-carbon energy will adversely affect economic growth and development (Prasad and Kochher, 2009). Recent estimates show that the cost for investment in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 550 MtCO2 in the major energy emitting sectors cost S$25billion, which is equivalent to the amount needed for the development goals here(Prasad and Kochher,2009). The next possible option is carbon taxing. Taxing can be practically problematic since the taxes will be imposed on not only the emissions that are removed on the margin but on all emissions. Consequently, the income transfers from the firms to government will be very much larger than the costs of greenhouse gas emission abatements (McKibbin, 2004).Thus it can be shown that any form of abatement measure will impose significant costs in terms of sacrificing economic growth and development in developing nations. This will not be a problem for developed nations, which have already achieved a high level of development in terms of all the indicators while in developing nations, where most people live below the poverty line, sacrificing development means a lot. It is internationally recognized, however, that investing in climate change mitigation measures is a necessity rather than a luxury now and developing nations have to contribute their part in this global action. Hence, they need to contribute in this regard and at the same time minimize the costs arising from this so that the development need not be affected considerably. UNFCC (1999) discussed pledge based approach called sustainable development policies and measures (SDPAMs) for developing nations to participate in climate change mitigation. Based on this approach, developing nations first identify their development needs like poverty eradication, job creation, food security, access to modern energy services, transport, drinking water, education, helath services and land. Then the methods for obtaining these sustainably which means achieving them through environment friendly practices and meeting the needs of future generations, based on SDPAMs .Then the SDPAMs resulting in greenhouse gas emission reductions and rises are identified. The development priorities for different countries differ based on the values of the society and uniform approach is not possible for this (Winkler et al, 2002). The main benefits of the SDPAMs include not only helping in the mitigation efforts but also reducing the burden in the future mitigation efforts thus changing the framework from conventional to sustainable. In addition, the sustainable development path has greater influence on equity in energy use than climate policy, which is supposed to be an additional advantage (Morita and Robinson, 2001; Winkler et al, 2002).In the third Assessment Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) , the climate change policy has been extended to the sustainable development path. The UNFCC Convention (1992) has allotted certain emission targets for both developed and developing nations. However, acceptance of these targets can have long term implications for developing nations since they can be in conflict with their developmental objectives. A uniform approach may not be possible in this regard since the developmental objectives of different countries vary significantly. The SDPAMS are based on the developmental objectives of each nation and then integrate the climate change policies into these. Hence they are national by nature. An example of sustainable development approach to environment policy can be given as the initiative by the Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) to create new economic activities in rural areas particularly using renewable energy to mitigate climate change without sacrificing development (Indian Youth Climate Network, 2009). The rural energy project, an initiative of the IYCN in association with several NGOs and industries aims at finding new sustainable methods to meet the energy requirements of people living in the rural parts of India. The initiatives include the successful development of solar led technology based solar lamp for giving quality light that lasts up to 14 hours. The main advantages of using these lamps include (1) financial benefits like long lasting battery of around 1.5 years and a small replacement cost of Indian Rupees 130 (2) reduction in emissions (3) positive health effects especially on women and children and (4) positive impact on the tree cover (IYCN,2009). This project was initiated on the national level. Based on the success of this project in one place, IYCN has decided to implement this project in other parts of rural India also. One of the main arguments of those who oppose measures to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in India is that these measures will be adversely affecting policies for development (Parikh and Parikh, 2002). The success of the project discussed above shows that development need not be sacrificed to mitigate climate change. 5. Conclusion In this essay, the concept of sustainable development and the sustainable development approach to environmental policy are discussed. The discussion shows that sustainable development emphasizes the need for economic development and environmental policy to go together rather than mutually exclusive objectives. Since the rapid industrialization, population growth and other man made activities like fossil fuel burning, deforestation etc have created huge environmental impact on future generations, they will stand as a stumbling block in meeting the development objectives of future generations .Hence environment friendly practices need to be practised for achieving development objectives. Now the need for sustainable development approach in environment policy has been recognized all over the world and is being practiced at the corporate and national level. Sustainable development based approach has been included in the corporate culture of most companies and in the policies of national governments. This has been especially helpful to developing nations where most people live beyond the poverty line. The UNFCC and IPCC have recognized the need for sustainable development based approach in their documents and articles The SDPAM approach to developing nations has been discussed in detail here which includes identifying the development priorities of each nation first and then integrating climate change policy into these policies. This will prevent the burden upon the future generations of the impact of mitigation policies. An example of successful sustainable development based initiative taken in India is also discussed here. References BBC. (no date). Weather. Microclimates [online]. Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/microclimates.shtml [Accessed 16 November 2010]. Chiras, D. D (1991) “Environmental Science--Action for a Sustainable Future”, Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, 1991. Indian Youth Climate Network (2009): “Rural Sustainability” (online) , http://iycn.in/rsp, accessed 16/11/2010. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC]. (2007a). “IPCC fourth assessment report: Working Group I Report the physical science basis” [online]. Available from: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm [Accessed 16 November 2010]. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC]. (2007b). Climate change 2007: Synthesis report [online]. Available from: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf [Accessed 16 November 2010]. Liu KC(2002): “Environmental Policy and Sustainable Development at the Corporate level” http://www.apo-tokyo.org/gp/e_publi/gsc/0313RES_PAPERS.pdf, Accesssed November 16 2010. McKibbin WJ (2004): “Climate Change Policy for India”, Washington: The Brookings Institution. Nuclear Energy Agency (2006): “Nuclear Power and Climate Change”, Nuclear Development, Paris: OECD. Prasad and Kochher, (2009): “Climate Change and India- Some Major Issues and Policy Implications”, Working Paper No.2/2009, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Parikh J K and Parikh K (2002): “Climate Change: India’s Perceptions, Policies and Responsibilities”, Climate Change and Development, Paris: OECD Peavy, H. S., Rowe, D. R., and Tchobanoglous, G (1985). “Environmental Engineering”, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985. Pezzey J (1992): “Sustainable Development Concepts: An Economic Analysis”, World Bank Environment Paper Number 2, Report No: 11425, Washington DC: World Bank. UNFCCC (1992). “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”. New York, United Nations. http://unfccc.int/resource/conv/index.html. Weisser, D, Mark Howells and Hans-Holger Rogner (2008). “Nuclear power and post-2012 energy and climate change policies”. Environmental Science and Policy, 11(6), pp. 467-477. Winkler H, RSFecher,S Mwakasonda and O Davidson (2002) : “Sustainable Development Policies and Measures:Starting From Development to Tackle Climate Change”,in Kevin A. Baumert with Odile Blanchard, Silvi Llosa and James Perkaus edited Building on the Kyoto Protocol: Options for Protecting the Climate, Washington: World Resources Institute. World Bank (1987): “Environment, Growth and Development”, Development Committee Pamphlet, 14, Washington DC: World Bank. Read More