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Dimensions
The human factor in the global environmental debate
Spring 2012 • Issue 1
Shades
of Green
Global Perspectives on
the Green Economy
The Moral Universe The needed return of Sun, Wind and Water to our moral equation
The Natural Economist Measuring the true costs and benefits of economic development
It’s Not Easy Being Green Why UNEP’s Green Economy is not the panacea it is hoped to be
Economics, Growth and Energy A sustainable economic future won’t be neoclassical
Green Economy & Sustainable Hegemony Do we exist to serve our economic systems?
Magazine of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change
Human D imens i on s
1
40
Contents
67
Feature Articles
8
Green Economy & Sustainable Hegemony —At the start of the 21st
century, people have come to serve their economic systems, instead of
the other way around. That isn’t sustainable and it isn’t smart.
Andréa Hawkes and Nicolás Kosoy
17 What’s in our countries’ coffers? — The Inclusive Wealth Index goes
beyond the conventional captial measures to provide a comprehensive
picture of the wealth of nations.
20 Green Growth & Innovation —Home-grown technology and innovation in the developing world are key to achieving sustainable growth.
Frans Berkhout
60 It’s Not Easy Being Green —Why UNEP’s Green Economy is not the
panacea it is made out to be and will lead neither to economic growth
nor to the emissions reductions necessary to combat climate change.
Peter A. Victor and Tim Jackson
78 Sustainability: Reassessing what we count & measure
Opinion editorial accepted to Project Syndicate
Partha Dasgupta and Anantha Duraiappah
2
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Illustrations and Photos Louise Smith
24 White, red, purple, orange, silver, blue, yellow, brown —A Green
Economy isn’t always just green.
78
46
Interviews
60
Departments
5Editorial
12 The Natural Economist —Sir Partha Dasgupta of Cambridge University on the challenges of measuring the true costs and benefits of economic development.
Sir Partha Dasgupta
6
53
Writing Contest
Did you know that?
68Opinions
72
70 Greening the Urban Jungle —With more than half of the world
population living in cities, urban planning must adapt to new models
of sustainable development. Xuemei Bai explains how governments and
institutions can catch up to technology in the race to save the planet.
Xuemei Bai
Community News
7Events Calendar
Green Economy Crossword
74References
CArtoons
23On the day the Green Economy
finally arrives.
52
The new rose-coloured glasses.
67
But how will we get there?
38 Winners —We invited young scholars to take part in a scientific writing
contest and have their work published in this first issue of Dimensions.
40 The Moral Universe —The needed return of Sun, Wind, and Water to
our moral equation.
Joy Merwin Monteiro
46 Economics, growth and energy in the Green Economy —Neoclassical theory can no longer frame our perspectives for a sustainable economic future.
Andrew Fanning
54 Greening the Economy —An alternative paradigm to sustainable development and poverty eradication.
Amandeep Kaur
Human D imens i on s
3
Human
DIMENSIONS
Spring 2012 • Issue 1
Editor Carmen Scherkenbach
[email protected]
Copy Editors Ali Daniel Velazquez Carmona, and Maja Spasovska
Graphic Designer Louise Smith
Published by
Secretariat of the International Human
Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (UNU-IHDP)
United Nations University
UN Campus
Hermann-Ehlers-Str. 10
53113 Bonn, GERMANY
Human Dimensions magazine features
the activities of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global
Environmental Change (IHDP) and its
research community.
Human Dimensions is published biannually. Sections of the magazine may
be reproduced with acknowledgement
to IHDP. Please send a copy of any reproduced material to the IHDP Secretariat. This magazine is published using
funds by the German Federal Ministry of
Education and Research and the United
States National Science Foundation.
The views and opinions expressed
herein do not necessarily represent the
position of IHDP nor those of its sponsoring organisations.
Subscription
Human Dimensions is available free of
charge, both online and in print. Subscribe to receive all future issues of the
magazine in your inbox at www.ihdp.
unu.edu/article/subscribe, or write to
[email protected] to order individual hard copies.
Online archive
This issue and all future issues of Human Dimensions will be available online
and as PDFs. Please visit our archive at
www.ihdp.unu.edu/article/dimensions
2
Cover Artwork Louise Smith
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Editorial
Welcome to IHDP’s newest product Dimensions.
With this magazine we hope to engage a wide range
of readers who are interested in the human dimensions of global environmental change and global
sustainability. Dimensions will be IHDP’s premier
dissemination outlet for key findings from its portfolio of projects. But it will also solicit articles and
contributions from key scientists on selected topics
in order to provide a broader and more diverse
range of views on the issues under discussion.
We at IHDP believe that there is no single
answer to a problem as complex as the human
dimensions of global environmental change and
global sustainability. As knowledge facilitators, we
see Dimensions as a platform for vibrant debate,
inviting a spectrum of views and opinions – even
those that challenge our own. Our editor welcomes readers’ responses of which a selection will
be published in the following edition.
This first issue takes on the Green Economy—
a term that has been gaining traction over the past
several years and will be a main point of discussion at the upcoming Rio+20 meeting. The Green
Economy has been touted as the new economic
model to address the social, environmental and
economic crisis we face today. It touches equity,
sound environmental management and new engines of economic growth. These are all key terms
that resonate well with the future we envisage for
our children and ourselves.
The recent report from the UN Secretary
General’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability has also identified the Green Economy as
a new economic model for the future. This issue
comes at the right time to spur a lively discussion
among the scientific community on what precisely the Green Economy is, and what it should
Human D imens i on s
look like. The United Nations has taken the lead
in suggesting the idea. It is now up to the scientific community—not only economists but also
anthropologists, sociologists, physiologists, behavioural scientists, ecologists, climatologists and
others—to actively engage in the design of such
an economy. We need a paradigm shift, or what
ecologists call a step shift, and to move away from
the incremental model which has in essence led us
to where we find ourselves today.
I hope you enjoy reading Dimensions and welcome your feedback for its improvement in the
future.
Anantha Duraiappah
Executive Director of the International
Human Dimensions Programme on
Global Environmental Change
[email protected]
3
Community
News
U G EC P r oj ect R es u lt s
U.S. Scientists call for integrated study of carbon
cycle
The carbon cycle science community in the United States has recently finished its planning process for carbon cycle research for the upcoming decade.
This reassessment was initiated by the U.S. Carbon Cycle Interagency Working
Group (CCIWG) and Carbon Cycle Science Steering Group (CCSSG) in 2008.
The planning process is culminating in the publication of the new U.S. Carbon
Cycle Science Plan, which was is intended to provide guidance for U.S. research
efforts on the global carbon cycle for the next decade.
Electronic copies of “A U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan” are available at
www.carboncyclescience.gov/carbonplanning.php
Call for pa rt ic ipa n t s & pa p e rs
RegioResources 21
RegioResources 21 started in 2012 to establish a permanent cross-disciplinary
dialogue on sustainability features in planning, decision- and policymaking on
multiple scale levels. The conference series intends to provide an overview on
the most recent questions and innovative solutions and to facilitate the intellectual exchange and methodological transfer between different disciplines
addressed in regional resource management, planning, decision-making and
policy support. The 2012 conference will be organized by Global Land Project
(GLP) and the European Land-use Institute as an endorsed project in GLP, and
will be held from 21–23 May 2012 at Dresden University of Technology. The
deadline for submissions is March 30th. For more information see http://regioresources21.eli-web.com/.
ES G O p p ort un it ies
Governance Capacity-building
Earth system governance as a research object is quickly emerging, and as a consequence, the number of academic programmes on bachelor, master and doctoral level related to earth system governance steadily increases. IHDP’s Earth
System Governance Project also organizes, endorses and provides teaching
to summer schools and capacity-building events and programmes. Members
Vi si t us online
of the Scientific Steering Committee and staff of the International Project Of-
Always
Up-to-date
fice also give guest lectures around the world. An overview of all Earth System
Governance capacity-building and teaching activities is now available at www.
earthsystemgovernance.org/teaching.
At www.ihdp.unu.edu you
can stay up-to-date with
the comings and goings of
the entire Human Dimensions community. News on
I HDP Sci e n t i f i c C o m m itte e
Professors Ruth Oniang’o and Dan Ariely join IHDP
Scientific Committee
scientific advancements,
research tools, project
We are excited to announce the addition of two eminent scholars to the
progress, new faces and
IHDP Scientific Committee: The Honourable Professor Ruth Oniang’o,
more are always available
and Professor Dan Ariely. Both Professors Oniang’o and Ariely will bring
in the Community section.
valuable insight and expertise to IHDP’s work in addressing the human di-
www.ihdp.org/article/com-
mensions of global change, and we are delighted to welcome them to the
munity
Committee.
4
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Events
Calendar
Visit us onlin e
Key dates for
human dimensions research
Our online events calendar
is a collection of the most
important events in the
research community. Find
an appropriate venue to
debut your findings, or
have your event shared
with our community of
social scientists at: www.
ihdp.org/article/calendar
Human D imens i on s
4
April
21–23
May
13th Swiss Global Change Day
RegioResources Conference
An event to bring together the
whole global change community
to discuss ongoing transdisciplinary problems, scientific highlights and future research.
The conference will establish a
permanent cross-disciplinary
dialogue on sustainability features in planning, decision and
policymaking at multiple scales.
16
29–31
April
May
COST Workshop
Adaptation futures
The workshop focuses on Global
Environmental Risk Governance
under Conditions of Scientific
Uncertainty: Legal, Political and
Social Transformations.
Showcasing cutting-edge international research, the conference
will focus on equity, risk, learning,
and finance for adaption.
18–20
17–20
April
June
Lund Conference on Earth
System Governance
Urban Environmental Pollution:
Creating Healthy, Liveable Cities
Organized by the Earth System
Governance Project, to be the
green governance event of 2012.
The conference will explore the
urban environment and how we
can begin to create a healthy and
liveable environment in cities.
15
20–22
May
June
Resilient Cities 2012
Rio+20 Conference
3rd World Congress on Cities and Adaptation to Climate
Change, aimes to provide the
keys to smarter infrastructure.
The United Nations Conference
on Sustainable Development
will be the paramount event
of the year. Aiming to secure
renewed political commitment
to sustainable development,
the Green Economy is bound
to take center stage of the
high-level debates. Outcomes
flowing from global change
partners’ Planet Under Pressure 2012 conference, and the
findings in IHDP’s upcoming
Inclusive Wealth Report will
inform what is likely to be a very
heated discussion.
14–16
May
REAL CORP 2012
“Remixing the city” is a challenge to manage and recombine
the elements which make our
modern cities in order to better
respond to change.
5
I llu s trat ion Lo uise Sm ith
INNOVATION
6
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Feature Articl e
he capitalist
system has
since its emergence as a dominant economic
model faced scrutiny and scepticism, which has in
many parts of the
world reached a zenith in the wake of a
global economic crisis
and after decades of environmental degradation.
Some would consider this
dangerous
environmental
degradation an inevitable byproduct of capitalism,1 while others would argue that the economic
system needs readjustments, but is
not in essence, responsible.2 The recent
oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico provided both
sides with a would-be microcosm for the global
contest between economic growth and ecological
sustainability. Was it bad luck, inexcusable negligence, or an inherent consequence of the economic system?
In recent years, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has developed the Green
Economy Initiative as a response to growing con-
Human D imens i on s
cerns over the lack of advancement in the sustainable development agenda and its millennium
development goals.3 This initiative aims at ensuring the social acceptance of a Green Economy that
draws from new “green” technologies to secure
economic growth. UNEP claims that a Green Economy will benefit everyone; however, in 1997, about
90 per cent of the “green” industries revenues and
profits were located solely in North America.4 To
fully understand the limitations of adopting and
implementing UNEP’s Green Economy, one must
first understand the broader role of technology in
our societies.
In his 2010 book Technics & Civilization5,
Lewis Mumford distinguishes three interweaving phases in the history of industrialized technologies; the eotechnic, the paleotechnic and the
neotechnic. The eotechnic period, from approximately 1000 to 1750 A.C.E., lifted some burden off
slaves and work-labor by harvesting and transforming the powers found in natural resources
such as water, wind, wood and glass. It gave rise
to mechanical clocks, telescopes, affordable paper,
prints and printing press, magnetic compasses
and the scientific method, all of which have considerably altered and benefited our communities.
The paradigm-shifting discoveries and inventions
of the eotechnic period paved the way for the paleotechnic phase. The transition grew in Europe
in the 1700’s, and culminated in the worst social
7
conditions since the Middle Ages around 1870 in
England with a crisis exacerbated by the Iron Law
of Wages and a vastly increased population. Mumford didn’t delineate the end of this period. Under
this type of development, quantity rules over quality; economies of scale are possible; mines, mills,
glassworks and industries thrive. He described
this period to be bound by coal, iron and blood,
and calling it “carboniferous capitalism”; for civi-
“What is progress today
but a collection of
innovations as historical
advancements?”
lization was driven—and is, perhaps, still being
driven—by carbon consumption. Nevertheless, a
neotechnic phase has emerged out of the old barbarian industry. To carry the meaning of the unchanged rigidity of the economic system, Mumford adopts the term “pseudomorph” to convey
the resilience of life that flows within.
“We have merely used our new machines and
energies to further processes which were begun under the auspices of capitalist and military enterprise: we have not yet utilized them
to conquer these forms of enterprise and
subdue them to more vital and humane purposes.” (Mumford, 2010: 265)
Mumford understands the history of technology and machines to be intertwined, and he
underlines the social and economic implications
of these new instruments that convert energy to
perform work, while being, unlike tools, partly automated. These non-organic agents either stretch
and magnify the capacities of humans, or attempt
to minimize the natural processes of life. For example, the all-pervasive technological advancement of the clock has transformed our relation
to time: human lives and societies are now synchronized to mathematical measurements, rather
than to the natural, celestial events that first gave
it meaning. This ubiquitous technology has provided our economic civilization with obedience
and predictability in workmanship, inherently
benefiting a system where living humans become
objectified labour.6 Interestingly, it can be ob-
8
served that anthropologically, we have bestowed
economy and work with valuative norms. The
search for immortality ranges between Calvin and
Faust: work becomes a guideline for valuing the
self, and transcendence is equated to profit within
the omnipresent capitalist state.5, 7
As the business sector starts to deal with the
invasion of ethics within a consumption-driven
economy, its basis for existence is restated: innovation.8 Indeed, the World Business Council for
Sustainable Development has reaffirmed its role
in the development of new “improved” products,
and the desire to influence consumer choice towards these newly created products, for the betterment of social and environmental issues. Although there can be a great deal of hope in this
message, there is sanity in questioning whether
the wish for technological innovations will indeed
tackle the world’s major challenges for better, or
for worse, considering the free market approach.
Historically, many authors have made a point of
this bond between technology and capitalism. For
example, Joseph Schumpeter observed that capitalism fosters innovation regardless of whether it
is a stated objective: “It is not the innovations that
have created capitalism, but capitalism that has
created the innovations needed for its existence,”
he writes.9 As he further points out, “the development of wants, which we observe in reality, is a
consequential creation of the economic development that has already been present. It is not its
motor.”10 In this light, we must reassess wants
in a greener economy, with preferences not as
given—such as within the neoclassical economic
paradigm—but as socially constructed.11
In his book Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If
People Mattered12, Schumacher brings attention to
the inability of the capitalist economy to ameliorate human welfare. He questions the relevance
of the supremacy of technological advancement
when it is linked to degradation rather than to the
well-being of humans and their socio-ecosystems.
In other words, the increases in production due
to improved technology have created mountains
of waste and hordes of unemployed people. The
worth of individuals comes from their work of
creating waste, and has led neither to happiness
nor gratification, neither to equity nor to health.13
And should this ongoing economic development—
green or otherwise—be seen as progress? What is
progress today but a collection of innovations as
historical advancements? The populist message of
UNEP’s Green Economy evades the deeper and more
troublesome questions of our economic system.
Further, the question is begged: does the
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
“green” in “Green Economy” entail little more than interests of the few? When Amartya Sen17 writes
replacing brown products with “greener” substi- about development, he considers quality of life
tutes? Is the crucial question of sustainability thus and living conditions to be chief points to sucaddressed, and if not, how should it be possible in cess. As development increases, one’s life should
the context of growth-oriented economies on a fi- get richer in the broadest sense. The exercise of
nite planet with an ever increasing population?
freedom must be bound by a set of plural capabiliWilliam Stanley Jevons lived during the in- ties inherent to the political rights of democratic
dustrial revolution—the “age of coal”. Being a keen participation. In other words, social exclusion, a
observer of his time, he noticed that although coal dysfunctional education system, the absence of
was considered the ultimate (and ever-abundant) social safety nets and acts of violence, are all signs
commodity for energy, it soon became scarce, and of a profound misconception of development.
the volatility of prices increased. In his writings, Why, then, is there an abundance of these charJevons raises questions of consumption in relation acteristics in the very same territory that is govto a finite good. Jevons’ most well-known contri- erned by the Green Economy industries? As Sen
bution—the so-called “Jevon’s Paradox”—was his notes, economic growth may have helped tackle
recognition that gains in efficiency due to tech- some of these social issues, yet it cannot sustain
nology have the effect of increasing consumption, wealth for all; and, after all, economic growth is
instead of reducing it.14 Logically, this increase in not an end in itself. How will green innovation fosconsumption corresponds to an increase in natu- ter not just economic growth but quality of life,
ral resources depletion.15 Examples of the Jevons peace and fairness? How will green innovation and
Paradox abound: in a research on the medieval the Green Economy foster equality? These are the
economic shift from the subsistence agrarian questions that must be asked as we look to diseneconomy to the institutional arrangements by the gage ourselves from the paradigms of our current
monastic orders, Fraser discusses how communi- existence, and make up for two centuries of shirkties were formed under the pressure to become ing our responsibilities to our environment, and
more efficient.16 The economies of scale during to our future. — [D]
this period gave birth to population and economic growth, and
favoured innovation and techAndrea Hawkes
Prof. Nicolas Kosoy
nological advancement. Fraser
elaborates how this new arrangement fostered vulnerability, exAndrea Hawkes is a dance artist Prof. Kosoy’s specialization is in the
ploitation and power inequities,
whose concern for the ecological field Ecological Economics, workthus promoting a macro-scale exand economical tragedies of our ing with National Governments to
ample of the Jevons Paradox as a
time has led her to obtain a bachelor internalise positive externalities
result of the unlimited hunger for
in agricultural sciences at McGill such as ecosystem services into their
efficiency. As a species, humans
University in 2011. Throughout her decision-making processes with
must come to the realization that
studies and professional life, Andrea particular emphasis on equity imthe entire neoclassical paradigm
has found pertinence in cultivating plications of commodifying nature.
needs to be replaced with a new
sensibility and awareness of the in- Furthermore, he has been directly
and congruent paradigm, which
ner and outer worlds. While working involved in improving the capacity
will enable our responsibility towith choreographers such as Dylan of developing country stakeholders
wards a finite planet.
Newcomb, Yasmine Hugonnet and in terms of the economic valuation
Even as we question the exSonya Biernath, she experienced of ecosystem services. His research
pense our society is prepared to
the power of vulnerability. Her own interests comprise the study of ecopay in order to obtain technologchoreographic works, showed in nomic incentives for conserving naical improvements, the discusMontreal, Toronto, Sherbrooke and ture, the analysis of economic instision should rather focus on what
Rotterdam, often depict the human tutions, environment and economic
benefits innovation will actually
character set by dramatic contexts. history, among many others.
impart. Science, innovation and
As a teacher in the dance departtechnics have a place in society,
ment of CEGEP de Saint-Laurent,
yet under which paradigm will
her primary concern is to empower
these thrive? Similarly, how is
her students with consciousness,
economic and political power goand the reality of interdependence.
ing to be freed from the vested
Human D imens i on s
9
Interview
The Natural
Economist
Sir Partha Dasgupta of Cambridge University
on the challenges of measuring the true costs
and benefits of economic development.
Interviewer Carmen Scherkenbach
10
Professor Dasgupta is
the scientific chair of
the Inclusive Wealth
Report, a project by
UNU-IHDP with support from UNEP, that
seeks to provide with
a more comprehensive
indicator to measure
the wealth of nations.
See pages 15–17.
other words, the value of the services we enjoy from
Nature and the goods that we extract from Nature
would be included in green accounts.
D: Who will be the key actors and drivers in
the transition towards such an economy?
PD: The key actors are us—we citizens. In the aggregate we consume too much in the West, in
a very wasteful, quite transparent manner. Our
consumption patterns are also biased towards
goods and services that make heavy use of Nature’s
products. That’s because Nature is typically underpriced, usually priced at zero. We don’t pay for our
use of Nature the way we pay for other goods and
services. The irony is that manufactured goods are
underpriced because Nature’s services that were
put to use in their manufacture aren’t typically
paid for. Those services should be taxed if there is
no other means of ensuring payment for them. In
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
P hoto Par tha D a sgup ta
DIMENSIONS: Professor Dasgupta, how
would you define the Green Economy in your
own words?
Prof. Sir Partha Dasgupta: By a “Green Economy” we mean an economy where Nature’s worth
is included in the reckoning when people engage
in economic transactions. That said, I am not at
all comfortable with the expression “Green Economy”. It suggests special pleading on behalf of the
environment, in a world where there should be no
reason for special pleading. Any sensible society
would regard Nature to be a scarce capital asset
and would insist on including its value in economic calculations. But we are not sensible, so for the
moment we need to flag that point and try to drive
it home by talking of “green economies”.
As an example of what national accounting in
a Green Economy would look like, consider that every year national statisticians produce an account
of the transactions that have taken place during the
year—consumption, investment, sectorally broken
up perhaps in investment in manufacturing, mining, agriculture, education and so forth. Currently,
one big item that’s almost always missing in those
accounts is the exploitation of Nature. Our dealings with Nature are not recorded. Green accounts
would include those transactions. So, for example,
in estimating aggregate investment undertaken in
the economy, green accounts would include the
DISinvestment that occurs when forests are depleted, when fisheries are damaged, when mangroves
are destroyed, carbon is emitted, and so forth. In
a Green Economy, governments would include the
value of natural capital in arriving at public policies.
For those forms of natural capital that make for the
global commons—for example, the atmosphere
and the open oceans—the drivers of a global Green
Economy would be national governments themselves, spurred on by citizens to take action. For the
management of global commons, there is really no
other option but international cooperation. The
transition to a green global economy has to involve
the engagement of all levels of society, from households, right up to international organizations.
D: Are there implementation barriers standing in the way of a transition? Do you think
it is a question of technologies or rather of
institutions, governments or nations?
PD: Well, it has to be the latter. The reason is that
technology doesn’t appear out of nowhere. Tech-
Human D imens i on s
nologies are discovered, invented and introduced
into the market. The drivers of innovations are institutions, and that means the true drivers are the
prevailing structure of incentives that people face.
It’s sad that for hundreds of years the technologies
that have been developed have been rapacious in
their use of Nature’s services. And there is a very
good reason for that: If you don’t pay for the use of
natural capital, or at best pay very little, innovators
are not going to economize on them, they will try
and economize on the use of the expensive inputs.
For example, if wages rise relative to the price of
manufactured goods, new technologies can be relied upon to be more capital intensive. The flipside
of the coin is that if Nature is very cheap, the technologies that entrepreneurs and inventors introduce can be predicted to be exploitative of Nature.
We have driven ourselves into a corner by working with technologies that are extremely intensive
11
“I am not at all comfortable with the
expression “Green Economy”. It suggests special pleading on behalf of
the environment, in a world where
there should be no reason for special
pleading.”
in the use of the natural capital. Looking into the
future, societies need to steer their technologies
towards those that are more economical in their
reliance on natural capital. That can only happen
if we pay for Nature’s services, but will require a
big shift. Small changes won’t do because we are
locked into a whole pattern of production and
investment in knowledge which is exploitative
of Nature. A few of us economists have been collaborating with ecologists in trying to understand
the character of the “regime shifts” that will be required if societies are to become “green”. In 2003
my friend Karl-Goran Maler and I edited an entire
symposium in the journal Environmental and Resource Economics on the subject of regime shifts.
It contained contributions by ecologists and economists. I edited a second such symposium in the
same journal in 2008. But progress in this is slow
because the body of economic thinking is engaged
in other issues.
D: Is (per capita) GDP an adequate measurement for economic growth or will new matrices be needed?
PD: GDP is inadequate and misleading. Most
people who have warned us about the limitations
of GDP as an index of economic well-being have
pointed to its insensitivity to such ethical concerns as inequality. Quite obviously, GDP doesn’t
12
reflect the extent to which a society is unequal.
But as an inter-temporal index of societal well-being, GDP suffers from a different, deeper weakness.
It doesn’t account for the depreciation of capital
assets. GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product, so
the rogue word is “gross”. GDP doesn’t include the
depreciation of capital assets that accompanies
production and the passage of time. An economy
could experience high growth rates in GDP even
while the forests are being razed. Several countries
that should know better are doing just that. Brazil
is a good example of a country that’s destroying
the Amazon at a rate that should be unbelievable,
but isn’t. And Brazil is applauded regularly in such
influential magazines as the Economist for its high
GDP growth rate! The situation isn’t just ironic, it’s
tragic. It is also very bad economics.
There is a great deal of schizophrenia in
economic writings. The Economist, for example,
periodically publishes columns on this environmental tragedy or that, when they occur. In those
same issues, though, the magazine can be relied
upon to spend pages extolling the virtues of those
economic policies that raise growth rates of GDP.
Taken together, their analysis never adds up. Unfortunately, readers don’t seem to notice that. In
any case, social tragedies are the wrong place to
look for systemic societal errors. It’s like looking
only for famines when studying the nutritional
status of a population. If you do that, you miss out
on persistent and possibly widespread malnutrition in the population.
So, yes, we do need new measures to assess
economic progress, but in fact we already have
them. A number of us in the social sciences (Kenneth Arrow, Karl-Goran Maler, Kirk Hamilton at
the World Bank, and I) have developed the required index. It’s an inclusive measure of wealth.
We should be estimating the wealth of nations,
not the GDP of nations. We have shown that societal well-being increases if and only if, relative to
its population, an inclusive measure of that society’s wealth increases. By inclusive wealth I mean
the sum total of the social worth of an economy’s
entire stock of capital assets: manufactured capital, health and education, the science and technology base, and natural capital. But because the
social worth of an economy’s capital assets depends not only on the prevailing and anticipated
technologies and the capital base itself, but also on
the economy’s social character, estimating wealth
comprehensively would require the combined
effort of experts in many disciplines: ecologists,
demographers, economists, social statisticians,
anthropologists and political scientists, among
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
others. Recently, a number of us have tried to estimate movements in the (inclusive) wealth of nations in a number of countries. Understandably,
perhaps, the estimates are woefully crude. But we
should be patient. Even the GDP industry took decades to grow into the influential giant it is today.
D: How do you see a Green Economy fit into
the existing global trade system?
PD: That’s a terrific question. I wouldn’t be able
to give you a good answer if only because I’m not
an expert on global trade; but let me try. Yes, it
would have an impact on trade; more strongly,
it should have an impact on trade, because we
would want it to. If there are underpriced goods
that have a large content of green stuff (natural
capital) in them, a country that exports those
goods in effect exports a certain amount of its
wealth to the importing countries without being paid for it. It’s as though the exporting country cuts down its forests and gives them for free
to the importing countries. From an exporting
country’s point of view, that can’t be right. Of
course, it is nice for the importers because they
are getting goods on the cheap. Trade restriction
is therefore desirable; for example, the imposition of green taxes in the exporting country. Yet,
the moment you say “trade restriction”, experts
on international trade start getting agitated.
However, green taxes don’t amount to disowning free-trade, they amount to pricing goods and
services in a desirable way.
D: Can aspects such as new regulatory structures or government subsidies, cause countries to fall afoul of WTO obligations? Can a
Green Economy lead to protectionism?
PD: The problem with the WTO is that it doesn’t really want to understand green issues. The organization isn’t willing to be engaged in environmental
issues except in the context of eco-labeling, perhaps. I can’t imagine that the WTO would disavow
the arguments I am putting forward here. It’s just
that they only pay lip service to green concerns,
they don’t make it central to their engagement. We
really need an overhaul of the international trading system, taking cognizance of the fact that there
are huge chunks of every economy that are missing from national accounts; more broadly, missing
from our economic calculations. But that’s just another way of saying we are not really paying for our
use of natural capital. The world economy is subsidizing the use of natural capital on a massive scale,
perhaps to the tune of 10–20 per cent of the market
value of world output.
Human D imens i on s
Partha Dasgupta
Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta is the Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge. He was formerly chairman
of the scientific board of the Beijer International
Institute of Ecological Economics of the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences, as well as professor
of economics and philosophy, and director of the
Program in Ethics in Society at Stanford University.
Since 2008 he has been Professorial Research
Fellow at the University of Manchester. He is
also the Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at
Cornell University and is currently President of
the European Association of Environmental and
Resource Economists. In addition to a number
of honourary fellowships, Professor Dasgupta is
a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy
of Sciences, and also a Fellow of the Royal Society
and the British Academy.
Professor Dasgupta has spent nearly most of
his professional life working on poverty and inequality issues. His cutting-edge research covers
welfare and development economics, the economics of technological change, population, environmental, and resource economics, game theory, and
the economics of malnutrition. Much of his work
has involved investigating the areas of sustainable
development in which the interests of economics
collide with ecological and social issues. An important area of his research has been the study of
social capital—for instance, the degree of mutual
trust and social networks that form a community.
Having grown up in India, he brings a unique perspective to his field. Professor Dasgupta has also
been invaluable to the cause of capacity-building
among young scientists, especially in developing
countries.
In 2002, Professor Dasgupta was named
Knight Bachelor by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth
II for services to economics. He has won numerous awards and prizes, including the 2002 Volvo
Environment, the 2007 John Kenneth Galbraith
Award of the American Agricultural Economics
Association, and the 2011 Zayed International Environment Prize.
Professor Dasgupta holds a B.Sc. (Hons.) in
Physics from the University of Delhi, a B.A. (Hons.)
in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Economics, both
from the University of Cambridge. He was born in
Dhaka, Bangladesh (then in India).
13
D: Could you tell us about the most encouraging and most disappointing development
of the Green Economy for you?
PD: Well, you are asking questions that come
pretty close to personal matters, because I take my
work very personally. It’s hard to be detached from
one’s work. I’ve been working on poverty, the environment and population for over 30 years, but
haven’t had much impact on economic policy, nor
on academic economics. The widespread depletion of natural capital, high population growth
in poor countries, wasteful consumption in rich
countries and the persistence of deep poverty in
the world are tightly interconnected, or so I have
concluded from my findings. But that work, much
of it theoretical and so should be uncontroversial,
has had very little effect on my fellow economists.
They still work with GDP and believe that technological progress can be relied upon to make up for
ecological damage.
My work has had some impact on ecologists,
though; they seem to take my work seriously; and
I theirs. But that’s about it. Mainstream economics has been going in a different direction. That
said, the shift to ecological concerns among economists shouldn’t be expected to take place within
one generation; it can only happen gradually.
There is far too much intellectual capital in eco-
“The shift to ecological concerns
among economists shouldn’t be expected to take place within one generation; it can only happen gradually.
There is far too much intellectual
capital in economic models that
ignore natural capital, so the incentives are not right.”
14
nomic models that ignore natural capital, so the
incentives are not right.
One positive thing, although I don’t know if
it is too early to say how productive it is going to
be, is that some nations are beginning to taking
green matters seriously. The Indian government
is intending to create a system of green accounts
later this decade, and a commission has been constituted by the Indian government. Its task is to
suggest the method that should be deployed to reformulate, recreate national accounts. I was honoured to be asked to be chair of the committee.
It’s an exciting venture for me, and very different
from anything I have done so far.
Another positive thing is that the young are
pretty conscious of Human-Nature interactions—
at least the young people I meet in England, in the
United States, the Continent and in India. But I’m
an academic economist, so I don’t have a feel for
the way political movements evolve. I don’t have
much understanding of it. But I do know that the
fact that young people are concerned about Human-Nature interactions doesn’t mean it’s going
to make governments take Nature seriously.
There are also a number of very progressive
NGOs focusing on green matters. However, there are
problems even there. Enthusiasm for green matters
can lead people to make statements that are overloaded, exaggerated or emotionally laden. There
is nothing wrong with the latter—people are emotional about many other things; but when it comes
to our dealings with Nature, emotionally-charged
statements can misfire. You must have heard all
those accusations leveled at “tree huggers”, “ecofreaks”, and “anti-progressives”. There is a cultural
problem here, arising from an intellectual disconnection in the body populous. We all care about
Nature but don’t want to hear uncomfortable facts
about contemporary Human-Nature interactions.
Because of the latter, we have lost decades. We
should have learnt a good deal more about the character of Human-Nature interactions. For example,
development activists, such as Oxfam and UNDP,
have made population growth a taboo excepting in
the context of “reproductive rights”. The organizations bang on about poverty, but are loath to study
the phenomenon in ways they haven’t themselves
been trained. As they are a powerful lobby, they are
able to block progress. As a result, the populationpoverty-consumption-environment nexus remains
a near-empty slot—in academia, politics, and the
public. The socio-ecological pathways that make
for human regress and progress are studied with
biased lenses. That’s a great disappointment for me
and should be for us all. — [D]
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Feature: Inclus i v e W e alth
The Inclusive
Wealth Report
The IWR is an initiative of UNUIHDP with support from the United
Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) and contributions from the
UN-Water Decade Programme on
Capacity Development (UNW-DPC)
and the Natural Capital Project,
Stanford University. The project
aims at developing a comprehensive
report on the wealth and changes in
the wealth of nations, with a particular focus on natural capital.
For decades, economists and
governments have used conventional production indicators such as percapita Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
or the Human Development Index
(HDI) to measure societies’ overall
“well-being”. Over the years, however, such indicators have proven to
be insufficient: For instance, neither
GDP/capita nor HDI reflect the state
of the natural environment and both
focus on the short term, with no
indication of whether current wellbeing can be sustained.
The report features Inclusive
Wealth as a comprehensive measure
to track societal well-being. It offers
a capital approach to sustainability by measuring the changes in the
capital assets worth of a nation, including natural, manufactured and
human capital.
The main objectives of the IWR are:
• To carry out a comprehensive
analysis of the different components of wealth by country and
their link to economic development, particularly highlighting
the importance of natural capital.
• To provide with a measure to assess transitions towards a Green
Economy. Changes in wealth
should be the relevant criterion
for assessing socio-economic
planning in the context of the
Green Economy.
• To become an indicator of progress towards sustainable development with the production of
bi-annual reports monitoring
the well-being of countries. In
the long-term, we expect Inclusive Wealth to become an important criterion in assessments
of societal progress.
• To formulate policies based
on the notion of asset portfolio management. The ways in
which nations manage their
diverse assets and create productive economic bases for the
future have critical implications
for long-term sustainable development.
The first Inclusive Wealth Report will be officially launched at a
joint UNU-IHDP and UNEP side event
at Rio+20 in June 2012.
Preliminary findings will be presented at the Planet Under Pressure
Conference in London, March 26-29,
2012. — [D]
FIGURE 1: Percentage change in per capita wealth
Brazil
India
Base year 1990
60%
Base year 1995
200%
40%
Produced
Capital
150%
20%
Human
Capital
100%
0%
50%
-20%
Natural
Capital
0%
-40%
IWI
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
-50%
-60%
GDP
Figure 1 presents an overview of the changes in per capita wealth, including its three main components: human, manufactured and natural
capital. GDP is additionally displayed as conventional measure of progress. Changes are presented having a fixed base year, in this case 1990.
Results show that while the change in GDP per capita between 1990-2008 was 34% and 120% in Brazil and India respectively, Inclusive
Wealth Index (IWI) had only an increase of 3% for Brazil and 9% for India. Even more, natural capital had a decline of 46% and 31% for Brazil
and India accordingly. These negative trends were however offset by the building of produced and human capital in both countries.
Human D imens i on s
15
Feature: Inclusive W e alth
What’s
in our
countries’
coffers?
The Inclusive Wealth Index goes
beyond the conventional captial
measures to provide a comprehensive picture of the wealth of
nations.
Human Capital
Education
Natural Capital
Cropland
Pasture Land
Forests
Minerals
To truly measure wealth we need to incorporate
more than just produced capital into the equation. The Inclusive Wealth Index adds the value of
human capital, natural capital, and ideally, social
capital into the calculation. Presenting a comprehensive insight into the wealth of nations the index considers the various capital assets that create
and sustain the needs of present and future generations over time.
16
Produced Capital
Machinery/Equipment
Buildings and Structures
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
I llu s tr at ion/ Photo Lo uise Sm ith
Fossil Fuels
Human D imens i on s
17
Feature Article
Green Growth
& Innovation
up.1 2 3 4 Such economic convergence
is assumed to be mirrored in environmental convergence, measured by the
resource- and pollution-intensity of
national economies. This is captured
in the Environmental Kuznets Curve
hypothesis5 6 which argues that there
is a relationship between income per
capita and environmental quality at
the national level. The end result for
latecomer countries that succeed in
catching-up would be patterns of
resource- and pollution-intensity
equivalent to high-income countries.
Such models of economic and social change, and the predictions that
flow from them, have led to growing
academic and policy interest in alternative growth
models that could lead to a faster transition to
more resource-efficient and low-pollution development pathways in latecomer countries (so tunnelling through the Kuznets Curve). This would
generate social benefits, for instance by reducing
health costs associated with environmental pollution, economic benefits by lowering the resource
intensity and costs of development, while also
forming the basis for modernisation and growth
through the creation of new industries and leading sectors. It is clear that technological innovation and capability-building will play a key part in
generating and anchoring new, more sustainable
production and consumption in latecomer countries.
Home-grown technology and innovation in the developing world are key to
achieving sustainable growth.
Frans Berkhout
Two key themes at this year’s Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in
Brazil are the Green Economy and green growth.
Several weighty reports have been published in
recent months in the run-up to the conference.
One observation is that these reports actually say
very little about green economic growth, in the
sense of changes in the structure and quality of
economic activity through time. It seems clear that
greener growth will be based on new technologies,
industries and behaviours, and that an analysis of
green economies therefore needs to be concerned
with how a radical reshaping of current “brown”
economies might take place. Research about such
sustainability transitions was at the heart of IHDP’s
Industrial Transformation (IT) project (1999–2010).
In its final phase, the IT project was especially concerned with the question of sustainability transitions in rapidly-growing economies in Asia, with
lessons for Latin America and Africa.
Growth and development
Urbanization and growth in emerging economies in Asia, Latin America and Africa have major
implications for global sustainability. These rapidly-growing economies generate large new demands for natural resources and are making major
contributions to global environmental problems,
including climate change. Conventional models
of development suggest that demand for resources
and the pressure of pollution will continue to grow
for the foreseeable future. These models hold that
growth occurs through a series of stages, eventually leading to long-run convergence with developed economies in their economic structure, rates
of growth and productivity—the process of catch-
18
The theoretical challenge
But the analytical task is complex, and it turns
around three rather different questions. First, is
what we have termed environmental convergence
inevitable? Second, what economic or other factors
could explain such non-convergence? And third,
are these factors a feature of economic, social and
institutional development of latecomer countries?
In essence, the question of environmental convergence is related to the question of whether economic growth is coupled (or not) to resource consumption and environmental pollution. If growth
can be decoupled from resource-use and pollution,
then there need be no environmental convergence
across countries. Latecomer countries would then
achieve economic convergence in terms of their
productivity, structure and income per capita, but
having followed a very different resource- and pollution-pathway. Typically, technological capabili-
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
ties and innovation are viewed as key intervening
factors in enabling such decoupling and so avoiding environmental convergence.
But if innovation plays this role in avoiding environmental convergence, conventional
growth models would predict that it would originate in developed, high-income countries and be
transferred to latecomer countries through trade
and investment. In other words, the source of
technology—the key factor which might enable
decoupling—is exogenous to developing countries. The main reason is that firms in latecomer
countries are not viewed as having the capacity
to generate, innovate and diffuse new technologies. What Abramovitz called “social capabilities”
to absorb technology, attract capital and participate in global markets need to be built up
in these countries before firms can be in
a position to move from imitation to innovation. Theoretically, this holds for environmental technologies, as for all other technologies.
But this line of argument generates another bind.
If countries are dependent on external sources
of technology and primarily concerned with absorption and imitation, then the opportunities
for decoupling may be limited, at least until later
in the process of development, once innovative
capabilities, regulations and markets have been
built-up. The preliminary investments made by
firms in capability-building and imitation, and of
governments in the necessary institutional settings for innovation, appear to tie latecomers into
economic, as well as environmental convergence
with more advanced countries. Theoretically
therefore, latecomer countries appear destined to
follow the same paths as countries that have gone
before them, with economic and environmental
convergence locked together.
Escaping the bind of “environmental convergence”
In the IT project we explored whether
innovation and learning occurring in lateindustrializing countries could contribute
to environmental decoupling and therefore to more sustainable development
pathways, starting early in the development
process. The project was interested in alternative, endogenous sources of innovation
that, set in the context of transnational flows
of knowledge and technology, could act to drive
environmental decoupling early in development.
The IT project has shown that there is widespread
evidence of innovative activities in latecomer
Human D imens i on s
19
Frans Berkhout is Professor of Innovation and Sustainability, and Director of the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) and the Amsterdam
Global Change Institute, both at the
VU University in Amsterdam, The
Netherlands. Until 2004 he was with
SPRU (Science and Technology Policy
Research), University of Sussex (UK).
He holds a Geography BSc (University of Leeds, 1983) and a PhD in Science and Technology Policy Studies
(University of Sussex, 1989). He did
post-doctoral research at Princeton
University (US). Among other advisory roles, Professor Berkhout will
be a lead author in the IPCC’s Fifth
Assessment Report (2013/14). Professor Berkhout has extensive research,
management and research training
experience across a number of fields.
His early research was concerned
with the economic, political and
security aspects of the nuclear fuel
cycle and radioactive waste management. His more recent work has
been concerned with technology,
policy and sustainability, with a specific focus on climate policy.
countries that have the potential for generating
radically new ways of providing for energy, mobility, nutrition and shelter. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Unexplained
by conventional theory, these innovative activities
present a source of innovation that is endogenous
to latecomer countries at early stages of catchingup. If these innovations lead to the creation of
novel, more sustainable technologies that diffuse
widely, an alternative source of innovation will
have been unearthed, calling into question the
dogma of environmental convergence.
The IT work drew particular attention to the
role of “sustainability experiments” in developing
Asian contexts. We defined sustainability experiments as planned initiatives that embody a highly
novel socio-technical configuration likely to lead to
substantial (environmental) sustainability gains.
Such experiments play a major role in “system
innovation” in socio-technical regimes in all social and economic contexts. Regimes constitute
the social, institutional and technological fabric within which economic activity takes place.
Change in socio-technical regimes is fundamental
to structural change in economies. Such regimes
are complex aggregations of technologies, rules,
practices and norms, generally exhibiting strong
inertia and path dependency. Change occurs over
the long-term, and includes interacting processes
of social, institutional and technological learning
and change; hence a discussion of socio-technical,
rather than just technical, change.
Perspectives on green growth in
latecomer countries
By the completion of the IT project in 2010,
its research had begun to demonstrate a number
of important features of radical, sustainable socio-
20
technical innovation in emerging
economies. First, actor networks
in sustainability experiments are
heterogeneous in composition,
including private, public and civil
society actors. This finding points
to a broader, more socially-embedded model of innovation. Second, regimes and landscapes are
relatively fluid in emerging economies and societies, rather than
stable. This both creates space
for innovation, as well as generates uncertainties. Third, learning
and technology diffusion between
experiments, niches and regimes
face multiple institutional barriers. Such barriers are a general feature of system innovation in which new rules of the game are often
necessary. The question is whether institutional
change is different in rapidly-developing contexts.
Fourth, we are only just beginning to understand
how global knowledge linkages influence the development and growth of sustainability experiments
and niches. These linkages are crucial in freeing
growth theory from the nationally-based analysis of innovation systems that appears so central
to the notion of environmental convergence. We
need to see experiments as located within transnational flows of knowledge, technology and other resources. And we assume that these flows influence
local capability development, stimulating the later
growth of firms and new industrial sectors.
Policy implications
Much of the current debate about green
growth is still locked in a paradigm of catch-up,
north–south transfers of technology and the management of intellectual property. This may have
reflected the state of the world in 1992, but twenty
years later and looking forward, the challenges are
different. The challenge in 2012 is to look for new
organizational contexts within which technological and innovative capabilities are being generated
within and outside business firms, eventually to
become embodied in new markets and practices.
These may include networks of private and public sector actors, such as those we now see cooperating in sustainability experiments. Such
experiments, and the heterogeneity of the actor
networks which constitute them, are flourishing
across different sectors (including energy, food
and agriculture, and urban planning) in industrialized as well as late-industrializing countries. Fa-
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
C artoon Lo uise Smith
Frans Berkhout
cilitating and supporting the emergence of these
new socio-technical configurations and the hybrid
innovation systems they constitute should be a
key focus of green growth policies.
While many system innovation studies originate from an analysis of the stickiness of incumbent socio-technical regimes and the need to bring
fluidity into them to create space for innovation,
under conditions of rapid economic and social
change things may be less sticky. Under such conditions, regimes and landscapes may be incomplete, or in a state of rapid flux, offering multiple
spaces for novelty and innovation, while also contributing to uncertainties that serve to limit learning, investment and diffusion. Such uncertainties
may be compounded by failures in governance. For
instance, a critical uncertainty around many highly novel innovations is barriers to market entry.
The capacity of regulators to generate new rules
is critical to the innovation and diffusion process.
Finding ways of dealing with institutional uncertainties in emerging green innovation systems will
be a crucial task for policy.
Finally, local and global knowledge and technology linkages are fundamental to the accumulation of green technologies and capabilities, whether
in developing or developed country contexts. Such
links may exist through direct or indirect relationships with foreign technical experts, overseas development assistance and foreign suppliers of technology. The relationships may be more reciprocal than
often assumed in the literature on catching-up,
with producers in industrializing countries becoming producers as well as takers of knowledge and
technology. Biofuels in Brazil, and wind and solar
photovoltaics in China are good examples of worldleading technological capabilities being established
in non-OECD countries. — [D]
D imensions Ca rtoon
On the day the Green Economy finally arrives.
Human D imens i on s
21
Photo Series
22
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Human D imens i on s
23
P Hoto Wa lm art
White
Walmart’s white roofs help reduce energy use
and have a lower heat island effect than a darker
roofing color. The skylights are part of the company’s daylight harvesting system, which can save
an average of 800,000 kWh of energy annually.
24
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Human D imens i on s
25
P hoto (R ED) Thi nkGe oEnerg y P hoto (purp le) Pew ar i
Red
Bjarnarflag Geothermal Power Plant in the North
of Iceland uses steam from the Námafjall geothermal field to produce 3MW of electrical energy from
one small steam turbine. Steam from this geothermal field is also used for district heating in the area
and for the Kísiliðjan Diatomite Plant.
26
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Purple
Farmers in Tanzania dye chickens purple (safely)
to prevent them from being attacked and eaten by
hawks—a method which allows for sustainable,
free-range chicken farming through simple innovation.
Human D imens i on s
27
Orange
The HarvestPlus* Maize Team uses biofortification
to improve the nutritional value of maize by adding beta-carotene, which the human body converts to Vitamin A. Millions of people lack Vitamin
A in their diets, leading to numerous disabilities,
including blindness.
*HarvestPlus is a programme of the Consultative Group
on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a World
Bank-based consortium of 15 research centres worldwide devoted to enhancing agricultural productivity, par-
Photo Har vestPlu s
ticularly in developing countries.
28
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Human D imens i on s
29
P hoto Wo rl d B an k
30
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Silver
Children assemble in their school courtyard in
Gansu Province, China, where a solar panel disc
heats a kettle. Solar power is a versatile, renewable
way of powering everything from cars to water
heaters, fountains, buildings and satellites.
Human D imens i on s
31
P hoto (b lue) Craig A . Rodw ay Photo ( ye llow ) BA SF
Blue
Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde’s Dune, now permanently installed in Rotterdam, is an astonishing hybrid of nature and technology: a sustainable artwork using no more power than a single
60watt lightbulb. The visitor passes along a densely-planted row of illuminated “flowers”, triggering
light and sound by his or her movement.
32
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Yellow
To help farmers keep fast-growing wild plants
away from crops in an environmentally compatible way, BASF experts have developed a herbicide
which contains the active ingredient pendimethalin enclosed in a microcapsule. The capsules only
settle where they are needed: on the leaves of the
weed or on the earth. Another advantage of the
polymer capsules: the bright yellow active ingredient doesn’t dye the field anymore.
Human D imens i on s
33
P hoto S ara h Macca ns
Brown
Coffee is the second largest commodity trade after oil, with 2.25 billion cups consumed around
the world everyday, and its production involving
some 25 million farmers. A number of initiatives
seek sustainability along the entire coffee supply
chain “from farm to cup,” helping to bridge the
gap between certified sustainable coffee farms and
consumers across the globe.
34
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Human D imens i on s
35
Pro fi les
Green Economy
Writing Contest
We invited young scholars to take part
in a scientific writing contest and have
their work published in this first issue of
Dimensions.
36
P hoto (rig ht ) Lo uise Sm ith P hoto (le f t ) pro vided by the Aut h o rs
With the focus on the human dimensions of the
Green Economy and societal transformations in
mind, participants were asked to consider political, technological, economic or social components,
e.g. equity, inclusiveness, and the compatibility of
these transformations with social, cultural and
political values. The submitted articles could focus on, but were not limited to, new technologies,
changes to the design of markets, social changes,
including the adoption of different lifestyles, potential implementation barriers, the long-run feasibility of present high economic growth rates, or
alternative development pathways for a transition
towards a Green Economy. They were also asked
for their writing to be directed towards a wider
audience, including non-scientists interested in
the topic.
The contest was open to young scholars from
all over the world, while those from developing
countries were particularly encouraged to take
part. Judges were able to select three winners to be
awarded a cash prize. Information on the winners
and their submitted work are featured on the following pages. — [D]
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
1
About the
Winners
2
3
First Place
Joy Merwin Monteiro
Joy Merwin Monteiro has an undergraduate degree in Electronics and
Communication Engineering, follow-
S ec on d Place
Th ird Place
ing which he completed two Master’s
Andrew Fanning
Amandeep Kaur
and another in Climate Science. He is
Born in 1984, Andrew Fanning holds
Amandeep Kaur was born in New Del-
currently a PhD student at the Centre
dual citizenship in Canada and Guy-
hi, India in 1987. She holds a Bachelors
for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
ana. He is a Masters in Development
of Arts in Mathematics with Honours
at the Indian Institute of Science,
Economics candidate at Dalhousie
from Lady Shri Ram College for Wom-
Bangalore, India. He sincerely hopes
University, Halifax, and is currently
en, University of Delhi and has gained
this will be his final academic degree.
conducting his thesis research in
experience working for a consultancy
Having the privilege to live in a soci-
Uruguay focused on the challenges
firm. Herein, she worked in a variety
ety where two civilizations, one mod-
and limitations of estimating the lo-
of industries across different verti-
ern and another ancient, exist side
cal monetary costs (and benefits) of
cals doing consulting assignments in
by side, Joy is fascinated by the way
climate change in coastal ecosys-
different fields. Amandeep interned
they interact with each other, thereby
tems, with support from the Interna-
with Ernst and Young, Business Advi-
showing each other’s strengths and
tional Development Research Centre
sory Team, Human Capital during the
weaknesses. He hopes there are les-
(IDRC). Andrew’s research interests
spring and summer of 2011. She also
sons to be learnt from both, which will
fall broadly within the interdisciplin-
completed a Master of Business Laws
contribute to the building of a more
ary concept of “ecologically sustain-
from the National Law School of India
sensitive people. To this end, one of
able economic development”, par-
University, Bangalore and is currently
his pastimes is to try and understand
ticularly as related to climate change
pursuing her MBA in Human Resource
the implications of this interaction
adaptation in coastal zones. He is
Management from MDI, Gurgaon,
of civilizations on material, social,
also interested in rebound/backfire
where she is among the top 5 per cent
economic and philosophical planes.
effects from energy efficiency im-
students. In her free time, Amandeep
His other pastimes tend to revolve
provements and their implications
likes to read, write poems and stories
around music, sport and sleeping.
for climate policy.
and volunteer in community outreach.
degrees, one in ICT for development
Human D imens i on s
37
W ri ti ng Contest • F i r s t Plac e W i n n e r
The Moral
Universe
I llu s trat ion Lo uise Sm ith
Joy Merwin Monteiro
38
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
E
nergy is a fundamental necessity for life, let alone a vigorous society or civilization. This fact has been recognized
by humans for a very long time—Sun, Wind, Fire and Water (in
the form of rivers and waterfalls and rain), worshipped by most
cultures, are manifestations of energy in one form or the other.
The main difference between pre-industrial times and the present day is that we have restricted our worship only to Fire, neglecting the others almost entirely. Why this became the case,
and as humanity again pays due attention to the other Gods
again, what entities must again return into our moral equations, is what this essay tries to describe.
Sun, Wind and Water are by nature non-constant but rhythmic entities. The sun is up every day, but disappears during the
night, winds change according to seasons, some rivers dry up in
the summer and others flood during the rains and nobody still
understands perfectly how the rains come and go. Other important aspects of these sources of energy are that they are diffuse
and not easy to store. Sunlight, wind and flowing water cannot
be stored by themselves, but must be converted to some other
form which can be stored. Such entities are normally called
“fluxes”, and they are the most natural form in which energy
is present around us. Even the purest form of energy that we
know, electricity, is a flux and has to be converted to chemical
energy in batteries before it can be stored.
The fact that these sources were hard to handle and diffuse
(or not concentrated) was counterbalanced by the fact that they
are for all practical purposes eternal. A European sailor planning to come to India to trade had to plan his visit to catch the
monsoon winds, but he did not need to fear that these winds
would stop some day. If today is cloudy, you can sun-dry your
vegetables tomorrow. Pre-industrial society’s entire existence
revolved around recognizing this variability and developing
means to “harvest” this energy. Economic, social and cultural
activity revolved around this ebb and flow of energy. Agriculture, wind/water mills were among the primary methods of
harvesting this flux of energy, converting it into stocks of energy (in food grains) or using it immediately. The main issue with
these Gods, as mentioned above, is that they are quite moody.
Thus, those human activities that had to happen without break,
everyday, like cooking for example, could not depend on them.
It was Fire that came to our rescue.
Before moving onto the miracle of fire, it is necessary to
analyse the moral universe of a person in a pre-industrial society. By necessity, a lot of objects in the world needed to be
Human D imens i on s
39
“The rhythms of nature which manifest themselves in the movement
of the sun, the seasons, flowering of
plants, migration of animals, fruiting
of trees were very important. Any activity that did not fit into this rhythm
incorporated into her moral decision-making, the way she
would decide something was “good” or “bad”. The rhythms of
nature which manifest themselves in the movement of the sun,
the seasons, flowering of plants, migration of animals, fruiting
of trees were very important. Any activity that did not fit into
this rhythm was not desirable. Restrictions on grazing, fishing,
hunting, leaving land fallow, plucking flowers and fruits at certain times in the year are all indicators of the consciousness
that humans depend to a very large extent on natural cycles
over which they have no control. Therefore, any decision on the
goodness or badness of any activity depended on the season, the
time and the natural environment we found ourselves in. This
was not due to altruism or an abstract love for nature, but due
to sheer necessity.
Fire is unlike others in this pantheon. Rather than being
energy in itself, it is a signature of a source of energy. Not only
that, it indicates the presence of a highly concentrated source of
energy. Sunlight in itself cannot become fire, but when concentrated through a lens or a mirror, it can become a very destructive fire as Archimedes discovered. Fire also yields easily to his
worshippers, you can switch him on and off at will, once you
have mastered the art. Therefore, it was but natural that those
human activities that required constancy were built upon the
foundation of fire. As long as there was fuel available, fire was
there, regardless of time, region or season. It is therefore not
surprising that Prometheus, the one who gave fire to mankind
in Greek mythology, is treated as a great champion of mankind.
If Gods are defined to be the masters of humanity, then fire, in
giving us greater control over our own destiny, made us Gods.
The fundamental reason for this capacity of fire is that it depends on stocks of energy already stored and not the eternal
fluxes that surround us at all times.
As humanity grew from being primarily agricultural to also
indulging in trade and commerce, the prominence of fire grew
very rapidly. The reason for this lies in the very nature of trade
and commerce—it is the movement of things, people, ideas
and cultures and all movement requires energy in one form or
the other. Controlling trade to some extent means controlling
the energy that drives it. For this reason, initial trade (and, by
implication, industry) was driven by animal and human (slave)
40
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
I llu s tr at ion Lo uise Smit h
was not desirable.”
power, firewood and sail boats. Mankind was making the move
from harvesting energy to “mining” it from forests, animals and
other, more unfortunate humans.
From the point of view of the enterprising businessman
or trader, constant movement (of something or other) was
required—movement implied trade and trade implied profit.
Not only was constancy attractive to the trader, but also to every section of humanity: constancy implied security and it increased the natural capacity of humans to build upon their ancestor’s work. In this sense, it is a hallmark of civilization itself.
This demand for constancy was at odds with what we had to
work with—seasonal winds, disobedient labourers, lazy slaves
and rapidly depleting forests which simply did not grow back as
fast as we wanted.
It is from this point of view that the shift to coal (and later
to oil) must be seen. It reduced the necessity to include the multitude of objects that previously entered our moral equations.
Mankind could finally look inward and achieve magnificent
progress without too many worries about what was happening
in the non-human world. This was the era in which both the
pessimists and the optimists, when discussing the future of the
world, were simply discussing the future of the human species.
Nature did not matter, for sooner or later we would completely
conquer it anyway.
Fossil fuel-based transport, electricity to drive industries
and homes, pesticides and fertilizers, which made agriculture
less of a gamble, all combined together to provide the constancy
we wanted and ensured a period of unparalleled prosperity and
population growth. A mining civilization had more or less replaced the harvesting one. Fire was now our one and true God.
With fire came a profound shift in the way we worked and
viewed the world. Farmers who could previously grow certain
crops only at certain times of the year, could now grow them
all around the year. People who previously aligned work and
leisure with the sun and seasons now relied on casual leave,
medical leave and government holidays. We began to work all
year round, eat strawberries all year round and live in houses
that were maintained at 27�C all year round. Corporations set
up branches all over the world, so that the sun never set on their
empires, forcing people to stay awake when they are supposed
to sleep and vice-versa. Like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, we had to keep running to stay in the same place. Constancy was showing us that it was not all great, after all.
It is therefore not surprising that, gradually, what was
“good” and “bad” was decided by taking ever fewer objects into
consideration, the logical conclusion of which came to be enshrined in the Homo economicus. To be fair, a life driven by coal
and oil does not provide one with the time to do otherwise.
Nothing but a severe jolt to the sensibility of humans could
shake them out of their breathless but optimistic race towards
an ever-receding perfection.
One by one, every resource that humanity has mined over
the past few hundred years has either withered away or stood
up in revolt. The first signs came when the humans being mined
for their energy and skill revolted under the banners of com-
Human D imens i on s
41
the way we worked and
world.”
42
munism and socialism. The frenetic
movement that characterises our
viewed the
era moved diseases, plants and animals to places where they were not
known, not always with good results. Agriculture is currently under
siege by stubborn insects that simply
refuse to be eradicated, no matter what is thrown at them. The
oceans are nearly empty of fish, and the sky full of gases which
threaten to heat our planet beyond the capacities of our best
air-conditioners. When you play with fire, it is unlikely you
won’t get burnt.
Slowly but surely, and somewhat reluctantly, humanity is beginning to realize that an inward looking civilization simply cannot survive forever. Those unsightly trees and insects will always
have to be part of our culture, no matter what we do. The first
few steps towards this consciousness have been taken (somewhat
ironically) by identifying the rhythms of the Sun, Wind, Water
and Life itself. Scientists are mapping out what are the best places
to harvest solar energy, what areas of the world have high wind
energy potential, hydroelectric potential and what places have
large biodiversity. Modifying crops to suit local circumstances,
using biological control for pests, understanding the response of
ecosystems to our activities are under way. In essence, what was
known before and conveniently forgotten, is being painfully relearnt in a more “scientific” manner. Our moral universe is slowly
but surely being reclaimed from the wasteland to which it was
condemned for the past few hundred years.
However, as we are making this shift, a very fundamental contradiction arises—our civilization, still predominantly
a mining one, wants to be driven by technologies that belong
to a harvesting civilization. We demand the constancy that we
have been used to for many generations, and which we idolize
as the epitome of civilization, but we hope this constancy will
be driven by technologies that are moody, uncontrollable and
unanswerable to anyone. This contradiction is manifesting itself in many contemporary debates and concerns: Can organic
farming feed the world as it is designed today? How can solar
thermal plants run round the clock? How can we design an electricity grid that is smart enough to provide constant power supply when connected to solar and wind installations? How can
we design newer batteries and fuel cells to shelter us against the
vagaries of the Sun, Wind and Water? What are the “sustainable” pollution levels that our skies and oceans can tolerate?
That we can go back to a completely harvesting society is a
pipe dream, similar to the nineteenth century dreams of infinite
progress and complete social equality. But it is equally apparent
that unless our moral decision-making does not encompass at
least a larger part of our natural and social environments, we
cannot achieve what we cherish and aspire toward. The energy industry has always sought to modify consumer behaviour
through prices. However, given that the largest consumers are
those that are also the most affluent, it is questionable how
effective this strategy will be in the future. It is unlikely that a
person living in a house with an A/C, goes to work in an office
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
I l lu s t ration L ou is e Smi th
“With fire came a profound shift in
“Our moral universe must not be one
forged in Fire, but also kissed by the
Sun and caressed by the Winds and
Water.”
with an A/C and travels in a car with an A/C will even relate to
the symptoms of global warming.
Moral decision-making must include a notion of duties towards other beings, human, non-human and even non-living.
Some actions must be performed simply because we consider
them to be our duty towards others. Our moral universe must
not be one forged in Fire, but also kissed by the Sun and caressed by the Winds and Water. Most importantly, as these elements come together in the glorious phenomenon called Life,
the survival and prosperity of all life must be embodied within
our notions of justice. Our happiness and survival depend on
an intricate web of causality that encompasses everything from
simple molecules to the well-being of the vast oceans. May it
never be thought of otherwise. — [D]
Human D imens i on s
43
44
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
I llu s trat ion an d Photo L ou is e Smi th
Writing Cont es t • S ec on d Plac e W i n n e r
Economics, growth
and energy in the Green
Economy
Neoclassical theory can no longer frame our
perspectives for a sustainable economic future.
Andrew Fanning
T
he term “Green Economy” has gained remarkable resonance over the past few years,
including recent mention in the UN General Assembly as “a means to achieving the end of sustainable development”.1 There are high hopes that
a transition to a Green Economy will put human
beings on track to avoid the worst of anthropogenic climate change, and reverse accelerating
rates of global biodiversity loss, to name just a few
examples—the tip of the (melting) iceberg—of our
present ecological woes.
Much of the debate on the Green Economy
is focused on the human dimensions of transition and especially on attempts to estimate the
costs and benefits (in monetary terms) of a “low
carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive”2
Human D imens i on s
economy. Numerous authors have pointed out
the deficiencies of neoclassical economic models
in accounting for the parts of life that lie beyond
the market in both the social and environmental
arenas. Some fundamental structural reforms far
beyond any public policy/discourse to date are
outlined if current and future generations are to
enjoy a similar or improved quality of life to the
levels enjoyed today.
Environmental quality: a “normal”
good or just plain good?
Neoclassical economic theory determines
the optimal allocation of a given good in a market
through the equilibrium quantity of demand and
45
Linear throughput of energy driving the conventional circular flow of exchange
Available Energy
The Ecosphere
Degraded and
Dissipated Energy/Matter
(Waste)
Low Entropy
High Entropy
Goods & Services
Spending on
Goods & Services
Businesses
The Economy
Households
Wages, Salaries,
etc.
Labour & Investment
supply governed by the circular flow of exchange
between households and firms. It is the dominant
economic model used to shape the laws governing current economic activities and is based upon
three central assumptions: i) people have rational preferences among outcomes; ii) individuals maximize utility and firms maximize profits;
and iii) people act in their own self-interest on
the basis of complete information.3 Contemporary branches of economic thought concerning
consumers, producers, welfare, labour, the environment, etc. are built upon these assumptions
which have also led to many critiques of conclusions based upon the simplistic behaviour of
Homo economicus.
In cases of market failure, mainstream economists often see a role for government intervention as a means to correct the inefficient market
allocation of the good in question. For environmental economists, market failure occurs when:
i) there are negative externalities to production
(e.g. pollution); ii) the environmental “good”
is non-exclusive and/or non-rival (e.g. public
goods); and iii) there is uncertainty surrounding
environmental decisions (incomplete information). At the same time, government policies are
46
also widely recognized for providing incentives
to pursue environmentally damaging production, known as policy failure.4
To address externalities, much work has
gone into developing monetary-based valuation
tools to quantify the costs borne by society of a
particular economic activity that are not paid for
in the production process. However, conceptual
and methodological challenges remain related
to the valuation of non-market ecosystem goods
and services, particularly stated preference methodologies.5 6 7
To address market failure from open access
goods, the standard prescription of environmental economics is to enforce property rights
through government intervention on the natural
resource in question.8 However, it can be completely rational for a profit-maximizing firm to
liquidate a renewable resource with a low regeneration rate and then reinvest the funds into
something more profitable.9 As well, conventional economics is completely silent with respect
to evidence of community-led sustainable selfgovernance regimes based on mutual trust that
effectively avoid “the tragedy of the commons”.10
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Ecological Economics: beyond
price-based tools
Ecological Economics represents an interdisciplinary attempt for researchers to come together
in order to explore new ways of thinking and acting in the face of growing environmental degradation caused by the current status quo.11
A starting point of departure from mainstream economic theory is the expansion of the
circular flow of exchange between households and
firms to include the environmental throughput of:
i) materials and high-quality energy (solar) as inputs; and ii) wastes and low-quality energy (heat)
as outputs (Figure 1).12 This intuitive modification
shows that the economy is a subsystem of the finite ecosphere thus undermining the neoclassical
view that the dominant actors in an economy are
firms and households that can be analysed separately from the environment.
By analysing throughput, ecological economists
show that the “perpetual motion machine” of the
mainstream model ignores thermodynamic laws
stating that subsystems maintain out-of-equilibrium
order (survive) at the expense of the continuous consumption and dissipation of available energy/materials from their host environment.13 14 15
Ecological economists, like mainstream economists, have also developed quantitative tools to
measure the human impact on the environment.
The major difference is the units of measurement:
ecological economists design their tools in the
units of the “host organism” (e.g. the ecosphere)
arguing that the monetary units of the “subsystem” (e.g. the economy) are incapable of accurately
measuring the greater whole. Biophysical accounting tools also suffer from conceptual and methodological challenges.16 One of the criticisms against
their effectiveness for policymakers lies ironically
in their avoidance of monetary units given that
national governments and the international organizations that unite them are currently structured
according to the market-based assumptions of
mainstream economics.
Contrasting concepts of sustainability
Neoclassical economic models often imply
perfect substitution between the various forms of
capital (e.g. that they are equally valuable) so that
their criteria for sustainability rests on maintaining
total net capital stocks.17 According to this logic, if
Country A degrades their environment but replaces
the monetary value of natural capital stock lost
Human D imens i on s
“A starting point of
departure from mainstream
economic theory is the
expansion of the circular
flow of exchange between
households and firms to
include the environmental
throughput.”
with manufacturing capital stock, so that flows of
total output remain the same (or increase), then
Country A is behaving sustainably. In the literature,
this stance is labelled “weak” sustainability.
In contrast, a “strong” sustainability perspective holds that natural capital stocks are not perfectly substitutable and should be accounted for
apart from other forms of capital. This implies
that Country A was not behaving sustainably if
natural capital stocks decrease regardless of the effect on manufacturing capital stocks and total output
flows. Let us now explore one of the most important contributions to our currently unsustainable
path (weak or strong) for both capital stock depletion and especially over-shooting the assimilative
capacity of the biosphere: energy use.
Factoring Energy Use Into Production
Energy consumption increased by a factor of sixteen during the twentieth century.18 In mainstream
economics, energy, if counted at all, is typically assigned a low factor share in the production process
(~5–6 per cent) despite its intuitive importance in
daily life and the observation that four of the top five
47
most profitable companies in the world at the time
of writing are energy-exploiting companies.19
Relaxing assumptions: energy and
growth in Ecological Economics
Energy and growth in mainstream
Economics
Intuitively, it does not appear probable that
the factor share of production allocated to energy
could be a mere ~5 per cent despite assurances
from mainstream economists that this is the case.
A number of ecological economists have used energy to refute a fundamental assumption of neoclassical economics while providing compelling
empirical analyses that eliminate virtually all of
the unexplained Solow residual.24 25 26 27 28
These approaches to economic growth and
energy use emphasizing the physical production
process rather than the market-based exchange
emphasis dependent on human behaviour of
mainstream economics. Taking this view, the
neoclassical assumption of equality between factor costs (derived in market equilibria) and their
shares in production (derived through thermodynamic transformation laws) can be relaxed. In
effect, production processes are a function of the
physical “work” required to transform input materials into their final form for consumption subject to the same physical laws that govern all work
processes.
The important aspect of these ecological
economists’ work is to demonstrate, using biophysically-consistent theory and empirics, that
the factor share of energy is typically a magnitude
greater than its share allocated by conventional
economic analysis. Similarly, labour is typically
allocated a much greater share in conventional
analyses (due to its high cost) than these biophysical analyses suggest. Economic growth, it seems,
has largely been a product of the increasing substitution of expensive, weak labour for cheap, powerful energy (in combination with increasingly
automated capital stock). The argument calling
for proper accounting of the physical shares of
production factors appears to solve the neoclassical “growth paradox”.
Some economists began trying to incorporate energy use into the conventional theory to
determine the causes of the large decreases in
productivity growth experienced as a result of the
oil crises of the 1970’s.20 21 However, these studies
found that the factor share of energy implied by
their models (~5 per cent) did not explain the drop
in productivity from the oil crises. In fact, environmental regulations put in place by the U.S. over the
1970’s explain more of the decline in productivity
growth (16 per cent) than the quadrupling of energy prices!
Neoclassical economic theory is unable to
answer a crucial question: what causes economic
growth? The Solow model (1954) is the most widely
used growth model in neoclassical economics and
finds that “total factor productivity”—another
name for the part of output growth computed as a
residual that cannot be explained with the conventional factors: manufacturing and human capital—
is typically larger than manufacturing or human
capital and attributed to “technical progress” and
country-specific “endowments”.22 Developments
of endogenous growth models have been no more
successful in solving the “growth paradox” leading
to paralysis in the conventional literature.23
“Without reforms, the
substitution of expensive
labour for cheap, powerful
energy is very likely to continue with implications for
increasing unemployment.”
48
Rebound effects of energy efficiency
Rebound effects refer to the phenomenon
originally observed by Jevons in 1865, whereby improving energy efficiency (in his day, coal) actually
leads, through various feedback mechanisms on
prices, to an increase in the demand for energy.29
Thus, the current policy focus of most governments to improve energy efficiency as a means to
reduce emissions may be more difficult than linear
calculations suggest. The discussion above is par-
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
ticularly relevant in this case because conventional economists, assuming a negligible factor share
of energy to production, also assume that the rebound effects of energy efficiency will be negligible. If the contribution of energy to production is
in the vicinity of 50 per cent as the biophysical accounting suggests, then the potential rebound effects of energy efficiency on energy consumption
could be much larger, especially in the developing
world where demand is not as saturated.30
Policy Implications
Consumption
The current strategy for reducing greenhouse
gas emissions in most countries is focused on consuming more efficiently. But rebound effects associated with the expected decrease in energy prices
from efficiency improvements mean that policies
designed to promote sustainability also need to
target the demand aspect. A step in this direction
could be to consume differently. This strategy has
been embraced by many proponents of the Green
Economy. In particular, the shifting composition of industrialized economies towards services
rather than manufacturing has been interpreted
under this argument. However, there is a growing
body of evidence that much of the decrease from
the composition effect has been achieved through
the export of “dirty” industries to the developing
world—referred to as the pollution haven effect.31
Furthermore, consuming differently does not
question the logic of continued economic growth
and is still susceptible to rebound effects.
Given the potentially insufficient impacts
from consuming more efficiently or consuming differently, a third strategy is simply to consume less. This strategy does imply a break from
mainstream economic theory, because it implies
that people’s wants can be fulfilled. However, this
is not to say that consuming less would not also
lead to rebound effects as decreased consumption
pushes down prices that could lead to increased
consumption in other sectors. But it could lead to
some of the collective action required as citizens
(rather than consumers) to make environmental
sustainability a priority in practice.
Labour and Energy
Without reforms, the substitution of expensive labour for cheap, powerful energy is very
likely to continue with implications for increasing unemployment. Studies show that accounting
for energy and labours’ true shares in production
Human D imens i on s
“But the relationship between debt and wealth
is not necessarily one to
one, since debt is a mathematical abstraction with
no physical limits, whereas
wealth is created in the
physical world.”
will be the only way to successfully tackle the issues of unemployment, resource depletion and
pollution.27 In this view, the massive profits of oil
and gas companies could be understood as the
incorrectly-priced cost of energy in relation to its
productive power. More importantly, to transition
towards a Green Economy, the low prices of fossil
fuels are an impediment to the implementation of
other energy-conserving renewable alternatives.
Thus, there is a clear role for government intervention in energy prices to equitably account for
the productive power of energy and create incentives for firms to substitute back towards labour.
The fractional-reserve banking system
One of the most important constraints to
moving off of our current growth addiction that is
virtually unmentioned in the debates surrounding
the Green Economy is the structure of the monetary system.32 Essentially, banks make most of
their revenue from interest on loans made from
deposits, keeping a fraction on reserve by law (~10
per cent in Canada, for example) and lending out
the rest with interest (90 per cent). As a result, the
only way for firms to make profits and borrowers
to repay their loans, when taken as a whole, is if
the volume of new borrowing exceeds the reserve
that is taken out of circulation by banks.32 This
structural requirement means that total debt must
continuously increase which means that output
needs to be continually increasing for firms and
individuals to be able to repay their loans.
But the relationship between debt and wealth
is not necessarily one to one, since debt is a mathematical abstraction with no physical limits, whereas
wealth is created in the physical world.33 The major
49
“The challenge now is to
put words into action”
implication is that the fractional-reserve banking system is structurally dependent on economic
growth regardless of the sustainability desires of
governments, businesses and individuals. Some
authors have made some proposals for change considering 100 per cent reserve requirements, limiting the ability of banks to give credit and using
so-called “high-powered” money for government
investment.34 32 Such reforms are fundamental to
any transition towards a Green Economy.
The policy prescriptions of neoclassical economic theory are being questioned as never before
Ecological economists are striving to merge
an ecological worldview with economic models of
human behaviour that are grounded in the finite
ecosphere. In the context of a degrading natural
environment in a full world, it is critical for conventional economists to adapt to changing circumstances and revise the assumptions of neoclassical
theory. Numerous indicators of sustainability have
been developed but they have been found to generate conflicting results depending on whether they
are based on concepts of “weak” or “strong” sustainability and always-imperfect methodology.35
The substitution of natural capital for manufacturing capital, accounting for the productive
power of energy and associated rebound effects,
consuming less and reforming the fractional reserve banking system, are just a few of the ideas to
be revised. The policy prescriptions of neoclassical economic theory are being questioned as never
before but there is tremendous inertia connected
to the “growth imperative” requiring collective action to fundamentally restructure the economy
and human consumption patterns. The remarkable momentum rallying around the concept of
the Green Economy at the moment provides hope
that a more sustainable course is possible. The
challenge now is to put words into action because
the evidence indicates that there is not much time
left to act. — [D]
Dim ensions Cartoon
The new rose-coloured glasses.
50
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
I llu s trat ions Lo uise Sm ith
Facts and Fig ures
Did you know that?
Human Crops
In terms of population,
crops equate to .25 ha/
person.
Canned Energy
Recycling steel cans
saves 75 per cent of
the energy it takes to
make steel from raw
materials like iron ore
and coal.
Euro-centric?
By 2015, 90 per cent
of future economic
growth will be generated outside of Europe.
Irrigators
Historically, irrigation
comprises between
70 and 80 per cent of
all water uses. There
are some countries
that use up to 90 per
cent of their water for
irrigation.
Mangroovy
Mangroves provide
critical habitat for a
variety of terrestrial,
estuarine and marine
species. It has been
estimated that ~80 per
cent of fish catches
globally depend directly or indirectly on
mangroves.
Human D imens i on s
Boreal Bank
The global Boreal is
the largest terrestrial
carbon “bank account”
on the planet.
That’s Fresh
Boreal ecosystems
contain the largest
expanse of freshwater
in the world; more
than 80 per cent of the
world’s liquid freshwater is found in the
Boreal.
Demanding
Global demand for
energy is predicted
to outstrip the global
production of energy
by 400 EJ (the equivalent of global energy
production in 2000) by
2050.
Up with patents
Between 1999 and
2008, patented inventions for renewable
energies increased annually by 24 per cent.
Auto Giants
More than 90 per cent
of all travel in the U.S.
is by automobile, and
only 4 per cent is by all
forms of public transit.
Left in the Cold
All polar bears are left
handed.
Carbon Grove
Mangroves sequester
up to 25.5 million
tonnes of carbon per
year.
What a waste
Researchers estimate
that in developed
countries, 30 per cent
of the total amount
of food produced is
thrown away, whereby
in developing countries only half is
wasted.
De-urban
Zambia is 44 per cent
urban but due to poor
economic conditions it
is one of the very few
countries in which urbanization has actually
declined.
Pop!
The world’s population
is growing by 200,000
people a day.
First Adopters
Korea was the first
country to adopt a
green growth strategy
into their long term
economic strategy.
51
W ri ti ng Contest • T h i r d Plac e W i n n e r
Greening the Economy
An alternative paradigm to sustainable development
and poverty eradication
Amandeep Kaur
for both developed and developing countries alike.1
Out of this need for balance arose the “transdisciplinary” endeavour of sustainable development supported by three interdependent pillars:
economic development, environmental protection; and social equity.
None of these independently can solve the
myriad problems that plague us today. This is
because addressing any of the pillars in isolation
without considering their interactive effects can
give rise to unanticipated consequences and the
weakening of any one pillar can lead to problems
in the others. Therefore, we need to consider
these as not conflicting but interwoven and complementary goals.2
Due to the multifaceted focus of sustainable
development, the Green Economy has emerged as
an operational strategy of economic transformation through investments in ecological resources
and services driving economic development.
A Green Economy has been defined by UNEP
as “one that results in improved human well-being
and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities”, based
on a triad of low-carbon growth, resource efficiency and social inclusivity.
This “greening” aims to dispel myths about
Overview of our growth over the years
Past
Future?
Present
Global
Economy
Global
Economy
Global
Economy
Global
Environment
Global
Environment
Global
Environment
Balanced World
52
Threatened World
Disrupted World
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
P hotos (cl ockw is e) Z ack Lee, Caf f e Vita
A
s the world stands on a precipice of change,
one of the most important debates to have
emerged has been the one that pitches environment versus economy. There are discussions how
state regulation can limit economic growth in
the name of preserving the environment while
without economic growth there can be no “real
wealth” to afford the spending on protecting the
“environmental wealth”.
We have to understand that all these discussions pose the wrong set of questions. The antigrowth stance which recognizes environment as
paramount is not an acceptable proposition—for
we cannot exist without growth, but growth at the
cost of environment will not leave anyone left to
enjoy the benefits of such a growth.
The need of the hour is to align economic objectives with environmental objectives to lead the
world towards sustained development. We need
to transform the economic activities completely
to be both regenerative as well as disaccumulative
so that “development” can be differentiated from
“mere growth”.
Changing the growth paradigm from “develop
now, clean up later” to one that seeks to capture the
synergies between environmental protection and
economic development will therefore be challenging
1
Republic of Korea
Mexico
The Republic of Korea has
Mexico has
launched a policy of Extended
started the
Brazil
The waste recycling process en-
1Seoul’s signature
character in recyclables
2Recycling bins in
Brazil
Producer Responsibility (EPR) through
voluntary labeling of
dorsed by Brazil already
which it has enforced regulations on
green products as an
generates returns of $2 billion a year. It
products such as tires and batteries,
“uncontroversial way”
also prevents about 10 million tons of
packaging like glass and paper among
of rewarding high envi-
greenhouse gas emissions where it can
other things. This has led to a dra-
ronmental quality.
amount to about 0.3 per cent of GDP.
matic increase of 14 per cent in recy-
Some 95 per cent of all aluminum cans
cling rates and an economic benefit
and 55 per cent of all polyethylene bot-
of $1.6 billion. ▲
tles are recycled. Half of all paper and
glass is recovered. Recycling in Brazil
generates a value of almost US$ 2 billion and avoids 10 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions. The National Solid
Waste Policy (PNRS), established as a
statute, provides for the collection, final
disposal, and treatment of urban, hazardous, and industrial waste through
the principle of shared responsibility
between the government, the private
sector and the public at large.
At the state level, Brazil has initiated the creation of a tributary framework related to development strategy, with the plan of opening a “stock
market” of environmental assets as a
novel solution to carbon credits.
2
Human D imens i on s
53
Dimensions of Sustainable Development
growth
efficiency
stability
Economic
For a multi-pronged approach attacking the
roots of the problem, we need to understand the
complexity involved in transitioning to a pathway of Green Economy. This will require many
changes to the framework of national economies
such as adjustments to the structure of capital and
labor supply—because a Green Economy is not
about stifling economic growth and prosperity in
the name of environment, it’s about reconnecting with what is the “real wealth”—reinvesting
in, rather than just mining, natural capital and,
favouring the many over the few. It is also about
a global economy that recognizes the intergenerational responsibility of nations to hand over a
healthy, functioning and productive planet to the
young people of today and those yet to be born.4
Measures towards a sustainable
future
We have established that we are poised on the
brink of a transformation—it is change or perish.
However, we also need to understand that making
these adjustments will not always be easy—invariably we will end up making trade-offs, some of them
which will darken our near future, but these burdensome upfront costs — such as replacing heavily
polluting industrial era technology with twentyfirst-century green systems — would pay off in the
long-term. However, given the differences between
each country’s natural, human capital and relative
level of development, the ability to move towards
a pathway of a Green Economy/growth will vary
considerably between nations.1
Given the difference in pace of nations, there
can be no “one-size-fits-all” approach to achieving
these objectives. Therefore, it becomes impera-
Percolation of Sustainable Development
Poverty
Equity
Sustainability
Climate Change
on
ati
alis cts
ern pa
int im
n/ of
e
tio
lua idenc
inc
va
int
r
ba a-ge
sic ne
ne rat
ed ion
s/l
a
ive l eq
lih uit
oo y
ds
-The Trickle-down Effect
Highest Income Groups
Bottom of the Pyramid
Social
intra-generational equity
values/cultures
empowerment
inclusion/consultation
institutions/governance
54
Environmental
resilience/biodiversity
natural resources
pollution
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
P hotos (cl ockw is e) UN Pho to/Ma rk Gar ten, H . A da msky
the inescapable trade-off between environmental
sustainability and economic progress, and provide
an alternative paradigm that balances both economy and environment.
Another concern which is highlighted in many
discussions of sustainable development points
towards the fact that despite the seemingly large
advantages that the “greening” of the economy
is to bring; the social equity pillar of sustainable
development may be left far behind in this paradigm shift. This is because even though economic
progress is a precursor to social progress, it may
not necessarily lead to it. Often, the percolation
effect of economic progress to the bottom of the
pyramid is grossly inadequate, especially in developing countries.
Therefore, access to basic amenities such as
universal primary education, clean drinking water
and fundamental human rights such as equal pay
for equal work, gender equity or basic standard of
living remains largely unaddressed. In this context
a Green Economy becomes relevant not only to
the developed economies, but even more so to the
developing ones as a key catalyst for growth and
poverty eradication, where in some cases close to
90 per cent of the GDP of the poor is linked to nature or natural capital such as forests and freshwaters.3 The greening of these jobs through a paradigm change at the grassroot level will enable the
trickle-down effect to reach the poor as well.
China
China has taken the lead in
the world for moving towards
the Green Economy. Realizing the
vast potential in green initiatives, it
wants to establish the first mover’s
advantage for itself. It is already the
biggest producer of wind power and
1
solar panels in the world and is now
pushing ahead with a five-year plan—
Chin a’s m u l t i - p ro n g e d a p p ro a c h
Agenda 21—for a “clean revolution”
to susta in a b l e d e ve l o p m e nt
where even the developed economies are wavering. Instead of keeping
Energy conservation—implementable
government policies and plans
environment-destroying oil subsidies,
it has encouraged the active use of
Reduced dependency on non-renewable resources—increasing use of renewable resources
cleaner fuels and renewable resources by creating subsidies for solar and
wind power. In one of the previous
Bolster focus on scientific and technological
innovation for energy conservation
Sustainable
Development
Create more green jobs—
generate livelihood and employment
years, it decided to phase out more
Balanced urban and
rural development
than 700,000 tons of coal-mining capacity as well as much of its outdated
Decrease carbon footprint by slashing water
usage and energy consumption
steel-mill capacity to move towards
more biodegradable and renewable
substances which will boost both its
economy as well as its environment.
Germany
The German government has
made periodic increases in
the tax rate for engine fuels, electricity, oil and gas for many years. The
revenue recovered from this was
specially earmarked to reduce nonwage labour costs by lowering the
social partner’s contribution to the
pension fund. The effect of the reduced non-wage labour costs is estimated to have created an additional
250.000 full time equivalent jobs and
reduced carbon dioxide emissions by
3 per cent as of 2010.
1 Ban Ki-moon visits
a bioenergy plant in
China
2 German energy plant
2
Human D imens i on s
55
South Africa
2
India
Gabon
Sustainable tourism in South
The National Rural Employment
Africa is composed of three
Guarantee Scheme (NREGS)
A relatively small nation, Gabon has decided to invest in
pillars: social justice, economic devel-
has been devised as a public work
national reforestation and park cre-
opment, and environmental integrity.
programme “to provide for the en-
ation programmes, aimed to reorient
It not only generates income and
hancement of livelihood security of the
it towards green growth without any
decent employment for South Afri-
households in rural areas by providing at
international aid. This will promote
cans, it does so without any negative
least 100 days of guaranteed wage em-
tourism, agricultural income and in-
impact on the habitat, environment
ployment in every financial year to every
come from agricultural and allied
and culture of the native people.
household whose adult members vol-
activities. It also hosted the Pan-Af-
unteer to do unskilled manual work”.6
rican Conference on Biodiversity and
1 Tourists in South
Africa meet local
women
2Participants in India’s Rural Employment Scheme clean
a silted reservior
3 Tourists in Gabon’s
national forests
Sustainable Tourism
Categories of works eligible un-
Development to spread the Green
der NREGS are, among other things,
Economy message throughout Africa.
water conservation, drought-proofing
Nationally, Gabon was implementing
(including plantation and afforesta-
policies to preserve natural resources
tion), flood protection, small-scale
and minimize social inequities. Gabon
irrigation, horticulture and land de-
had banned imports of non-biode-
velopment. Environmental protection
gradable plastic bags, and enacted
and conservation constitute the lion
policies that focused on reducing and
share of work performed. This has
recycling waste, as well as reutilizing
generated three billion working days-
plastics. Moreover, it is promoting
worth of employment benefiting close
lead-free gasoline and working to re-
to 60 million households.
duce sulphur from diesel oil.
—South Africa
Ecology
Environment,
Natural Resources
Customer
Satisfaction
Business
Profitability
Sustainable
Tourism
Socio-Economy
local and national,
economic and social
development, job
creation, working
conditions
Socio-Culture
monuments,
cultural heritage,
ethnic groups,
living cultures,
local cultures
Decent
Work
56
3
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
P hotos (cl ockw is e) Ca ll um McD o nal d, Mck ay Sa va ge, Carl o s Ol i ve i ra Re i s
1
tive to develop an integrative yet adaptive global
framework, where each government must determine how the Green Economy could work for its
people and for the planet.
For developing economies, percolation of
wealth to the bottom of the pyramid is paramount,
so a focus on job opportunities and sustainable
livelihoods is crucial. On the other hand, for the
developed world the focus should be on capital
spending on research and innovation to bring
about substantial cuts in their carbon footprint.
There should also be an agreement with respect
to technology transfer from the developed to the
developing world to enable equitable contribution in carbon cuts. This is keeping in line with an
important principle of sustainable development:
common but differentiated responsibility.
Another concern is that the Green Economy
strategies should aim to open new markets for
export for even the developing economies, rather
than imposing “green conditionalities” that limited developing countries’ outbound trade. This
kind of green potential will do nothing to equalize the north–south divide in the world. Similar
is the case for green subsidies for research and
development of new technologies, new market
mechanisms and environmental taxes. If improperly applied, taxes could be a development barrier and an additional burden to poor countries.5
However, if properly implemented, the resulting
revenue could expand technology worldwide in
the long term. Therefore, while these are good
tools to encourage energy producers and consumers to adopt environmentally friendly behaviour,
care should be taken so that they don’t become
distortion-creating mechanisms. We must move
beyond the polarities of the past, such as development versus environment, state versus market,
and North versus South.
Further, it is important to address the fear of
developing nations over job losses resulting from
greener economic policies. For example, some
existing technologies may become obsolete or
redundant due to newer guidelines and norms
of carbon emissions. This will lead to additional
costs for businesses and may even result in job
loss in these sectors. Even in the most favourable
scenario, in which green economic policies result
in net job creation, there are questions as to the
effect of the same on remuneration and skill set
change for the employees. Further costs may arise
due to severance packages for obsolete workers or
training costs associated with green practices.
We see that the governments will have a central role in changing statutes and policies and in
Human D imens i on s
investing public money to make this transition
possible. This in turn will help unleash trillions
of private funding for the Green Economy. Firm
commitment and resolute action by governments
at local, regional, national and international levels are needed to foster sustainable, equitable
development.
Further, it is critical for a Green Economy to
be transparent. There is a growing need for common indicators scaled to international standards,
thereby creating a common platform for evaluating progress. Also, the current spending of about
one and two per cent of global GDP on subsidies
for unsustainable resources such as fossil fuels, agriculture, including pesticide subsidies, water and
fisheries, needs to go. Phasing these out will lead
to growth and poverty eradication and open fiscal space and free resources for a Green Economy
transition.
The UNEP report on sustainable development
calculates that the cost of shifting to a Green
Economy stands at just two per cent of total world
GDP, about $1.3tr at current levels, which should be
spread across ten key sectors: agriculture, buildings, energy, fisheries, forests, manufacturing,
tourism, transport, water and waste management.
It indicates that the higher annual growth rates
promised by a greener economy will be delivered
within five to ten years, thereby quickly recovering
the initial cost of transition with an added impetus of leading to energy savings and reduction in
environmental damage.
While nations are already working with great
zeal on a number of these areas, five major areas
still requiring considerable green work include
sustainable construction, finance, energy, waste
and agriculture.
A significant change in these sectors will in
turn help disprove the myth of green initiatives as a
liability on the country’s economy. It will comprehensively challenge the myth of a trade-off between
environmental investments and economic growth
and instead point to a greener and cleaner world.
The biggest risk of all would be to
continue with the status quo
The Green Economy is the solution to help
mankind keep its ecological footprint within
planetary boundaries. Such a transition will not
be without risks and challenges. The impetus is
now on the world leaders, civil society and leading
businesses to collaboratively engage, rethink and
redefine traditional measures of wealth and wellbeing. — [D]
57
Feature Article
It’s Not Easy
Being Green
n the run-up to the Rio+20 conference in June
this year, the language of the Green Economy
has become a kind of Holy Grail. It is entirely understandable of course. Continuing uncertainties in the financial markets, faltering growth in
developed economies and debt crises in the Eurozone still haunt the global economy. The political mind is focussed on getting back to what is
lovingly called “business as usual”, which usually
means “growth at all costs”. It is easy to forget that
growth at all costs was a place of rapidly rising
carbon emissions, disappearing habitats and fast
declining resource quality.
The fundamental dilemma underlying modern society is a profound one. Untrammelled economic growth is unsustainable—at least in anything like the form we have had it in the last five
or six decades. But degrowth (décroissance in the
much more palatable French) is unstable—at least
within the parameters of the economic system as
we know it today. No wonder we are tempted to
reach for the comforting idea that there is something called a Green Economy: an economy that
delivers the goods without destroying the planet.
Particularly, as we live in a world in which the
pursuit of economic growth—defined as the rate
of increase in real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP)—is one of the highest priorities of governments, the private sector, and even
many elements of civil society, dependent as many
of them are on economic growth for financial support and basic stability. If we can move towards a
Green Economy without undermining economic growth, then the difficult task of achieving sustainability
will become much easier.
UNEP’s recent report Towards
a Green Economy defines the Green
Economy as an economy “that results
in improved human well-being and
social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities”. In view of the state
of the world’s economies, the impacts
they are having on environments from
local to global, and the widespread incidence of social and economic injustice, the appeal of a Green Economy
so defined is obvious.
What is less obvious is how we
might get there. The UNEP report
attempts to make some progress on
this question. It describes in particular a set of enabling conditions for
the transition to a Green Economy
Why UNEP’s Green Economy is not the
panacea it is made out to be and will
lead neither to economic growth nor to
the emissions reductions necessary to
combat climate change.
Peter A. Victor and Tim Jackson
58
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
I llu s trat ion Lo uise Sm ith
I
Human D imens i on s
59
“As impressive as the UNEP
model is, it is deficient
in one major respect for
analysing the transition to
a Green Economy: it treats
I llu s tr at ion Lo uise Smit h
the world as a single unit.”
60
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
covering regulatory frameworks, government investment and spending strategies, taxation and
market-based instruments, investment in capacity-building, training and education, and strengthening international governance.
So far so good. But what about the question
of growth? It is here that the report makes its
strongest claim, namely that “a Green Economy
grows faster than a brown economy over time,
while maintaining and restoring natural capital”.1
So UNEP’s remarkable claim is not just that the
Green Economy is still a growth-based economy;
but that the growth rates will be even faster than
those expected under conventional assumptions
about economic growth. In our view this claim is
unsubstantiated. In the following paragraphs we
attempt to show why.
Brown growth good; green
growth better?
If the claim in the UNEP report is correct, we
can continue to enjoy an ever-increasing output
and consumption of goods and services, while improving social equity and reducing impacts on the
environment. But can we? Is it reasonable to claim
that a Green Economy grows faster than a brown
one? Or is a more radical overhaul of economic
structure needed if we are to remain within the
biophysical limits of the planet?
In many respects, the simulation model on
which UNEP’s claim about green growth rates is
made is impressive. It consists of multiple components of the global socio-economic, environmental and resource systems including: population,
agriculture, forestry, industry, services, transportation, waste, water, and energy. Furthermore, it
includes relationships among these multiple components, allowing for feedback and non-linearities, and uses empirical data to quantify relationships in the model.
All models are simplifications of the system
they are designed to represent. We build them to
help understand the system in question. A key issue when designing and evaluating a model, and
interpreting the results derived from it, is whether
the particular simplifications are appropriate given the purpose the model is intended to serve.
As impressive as the UNEP model is, it is deficient in one major respect for analysing the transition to a Green Economy: it treats the world as a
single unit. All the data in the model are global averages. All the empirical relationships in the model are global averages. All the results are global averages. The model does not recognize differences
Human D imens i on s
among geographic regions or between richer and
poorer nations. These differences are all lost in the
global averages.
This lack of differentiation is a particularly
severe deficiency in relation to social equity,
which, in an economic context, is closely related
to income distribution. Per capita incomes in the
richest nations can be an order of magnitude or
more greater than those in the poorest nations.
But these disparities are invisible in such a model.
In fact, income distribution simply cannot be addressed in a model of global averages. Yet the declared aim of the model is to shed light on social
equity as one facet of a Green Economy.
Reliance on global averages is also a problem
for other issues such as forecasts of global greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions are rising
at different rates in different regions, so estimates
of global emissions based on average global rates
of increase differ markedly from global estimates
based on the summation of estimates for individual countries or regions. The end result, as we
shall see below, is that UNEP’s conclusions about
green versus brown growth are at least premature,
and more likely, seriously misleading.
But before exploring in more detail whether
a more regionally disaggregated model might
change this conclusion, there are some other
equally serious deficiencies in the UNEP assumptions. Perhaps the most critical amongst these is
that UNEP’s Green Economy simply does not go far
enough in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
How green is your Green Economy?
While a significant reduction in greenhouse
gas emissions climate change is only one dimension of a Green Economy, it is perhaps the most
important. It is certainly the one that continues
to attract the most attention. The IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report argues that in order to achieve
a 450 parts per million (ppm) stabilization target
and prevent “dangerous” anthropogenic climate
change, carbon emissions would need to peak
by 2015 and then decline rapidly, so that global
carbon emissions in 2050 are in the range 15–50
per cent of carbon emissions in 2000. That is a
reduction of between 50 and 85 per cent over
2000 emissions. More recent scientific evidence
suggests that the 450 ppm stabilization target is
insufficient to remain within a 2 degree global
warming and this has led to calls for a 350 ppm
stabilization target instead. This would certainly
require a reduction in global emissions by 2050 at
the higher end of the 50–85 per cent range.
61
“It is one thing to wish for a Green Economy.
It is quite another, of course, to define it, to
design it and to deliver it. There is no point
hoping that by putting two words that we
like together the result will be something
that works.”
By contrast, the greenhouse gas emission reduction target established in UNEP’s Green Economy (G2) scenario amounts to a reduction of less
than 17 per cent over carbon emissions in the year
2000. So in short, the target set in the UNEP Green
Economy is just not green enough. The emission
reductions achieved by 2050 are woefully inadequate when compared against those required to
meet climate change targets.
Investing in the Green Economy
A further problem with the UNEP scenarios is
the way in which investment is conceptualized. Investment is fundamental to growth in any economy. In conventional economics, capital and labour
are the most important factors of production. All
other things being equal, an economy with more
investment will grow faster than one with less
investment. So any comparison of growth rates
between the green and brown economies should
be based on an assumption of equal investment in
each economy.
In the UNEP scenarios this does not happen.
Investment growth is modeled as a percentage of
GDP in both the green and the brown scenarios.
The report claims that only the pattern (and not
the amount) of the additional investment is different. Yet, an increase in investment of 2 per cent
per year would only correspond to the same absolute increase in investment in the two scenarios
if global GDP was also the same in both scenarios.
But this is not the case. From 2030 the global GDP
is larger in the green scenario. Hence additional
investment is also larger, and it is no surprise then
to find the Green Economy growing faster than
62
the brown one. A fairer comparison would have
been to compare scenarios within which the absolute levels of additional investment were the
same, not the percentages.
More worryingly perhaps, the model fails
to explain how this additional investment is financed. Additional investment must be paid for,
most likely through a combination of private and
public debt and so there are likely to be further
consequences for growth, trade and distribution.
These consequences are not accounted for in the
UNEP model.
An alternative approach would have been to
avoid the financing issue by examining the consequences of a reallocation of investment rather than
an increase in investment. In such circumstances
no increase in funding would be required. In a paper providing technical background material to
the report, the UNEP team offered a comparison of
additional and reallocated investment. They concluded that “when using the same assumptions,
results of the simulations do not significantly differ from each other for most variables”. But this
conclusion overlooks the potential significance of
the financing issue which only comes into play in
the additional investment scenario. By neglecting
this issue any comparison of scenarios involving
additional investment and a reallocation of investment remains meaningless.
Growing unequal
We now come to the most important reason
for questioning the conclusions of the UNEP report
regarding growth rates in green and brown econ-
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Tim Jackson
Dr. Tim Jackson is Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey and Director of the
ESRC Research Group on Lifestyles,
Values and Environment (RESOLVE).
Funded by the UK Economic and
Social Research Council, the aim
of RESOLVE is to develop a robust
understanding of the links between
lifestyle, societal values and the environment, and to provide evidencebased advice to policymakers seeking
to influence people’s lifestyles and
omies—the use of a single region model to make
assumptions about an unequal world.
Emissions of carbon dioxide from the economy
can be modeled using the so-called Kaya equation:
CO2 =
P =
A =
E =
C =
CO2 = P x A x E x C
where:
CO2 emissions per year (tonnes)
population
affluence represented as real GDP/person (US$/person)
energy intensity represented as energy/GDP (kgoe/
US$)
CO2 emissions per unit energy (kg/kgoe)
If the percentage changes in the values of variables on the right hand side of the Kaya equation
are “small”, we can simply add them together to
get a very close estimate of the percentage change
in CO2 emissions.
So, for example, from 1998 to 2007 the average annual percentage change in global CO2
emissions was 2.6 per cent. This is approximately
equal to the sum of the average annual percentage
changes in population (1.2 per cent), affluence (2.0
per cent), energy intensity (-0.8 per cent) and CO2
emissions per unit energy (0.1 per cent). If these
trends continue for 40 years then global CO2 emissions will increase by 169 per cent.
Even if we factor in the expected reduction
in the rate of growth of population to an average
annual rate of 0.6 per cent but maintain the same
rate of change in the other variables, global CO2
emissions would more than double in 40 years.
To achieve the 35 per cent reduction in global CO2
Human D imens i on s
practices. Prof Jackson also directs
the newly-awarded Defra/ESRC Sustainable Lifestyles Research Group.
From 2004 to 2011 he was Economics Commissioner on the UK Sustainable Development Commission,
where his work culminated in the
publication of the controversial book
Prosperity without Growth – economics for a finite planet3. In addition to
his academic work, Tim is an awardwinning dramatist with numerous
radio writing credits for the BBC.
emissions in the UNEP Green Economy scenario by
2050, global CO2 emission intensity will have to decline at an average annual rate of 3.7 per cent.
Note that this is already some five times higher than the average decline in CO2 emission intensity over the last decade. But this simple model
still portrays the global economy as a single, undifferentiated system and is essentially blind to
regional, national and class disparities. The enormous variation in income, population, energy intensity and emission intensity at sub-global levels
does not come into play.
So now suppose instead that we apply the
Kaya equation to two distinct regions of the world,
one comprising the high-income countries and
the other the low and middle-income countries. In
this model, we find that when trends continue for
40 years, global CO2 emissions will increase by 297
per cent, rather than the 169 per cent as appeared
to be the case when the projection is based on
global averages. The reason for this is that the low
and middle-income countries are not only growing faster than the high-income nations but they
also have higher energy and carbon intensities.
The average figures obscure these underlying regional trends and underestimate the task in hand.
To illustrate further the dangers of this approach, in 2007 the ratio of GDP per person in
high-income countries and middle- plus lowincome countries exceeded 17:1. If this ratio is
maintained for the next 40 years, a rate of decline
in average CO2 intensities of 4.0 per cent per year
in both groups of countries is required in order
to achieve the 35 per cent reduction target in the
UNEP report. At the same time, there would be an
increase in absolute per capita income differences
63
from US$41,000 per capita in 2011 to $110,000 per
capita in 2050.
This is clearly a deeply unequal world. Suppose
instead that the gap between average incomes per
capita in the two groups of countries were to close
by mid century, with the same overall increase in
world economic output. In such a world even a 4
per cent per year decline in CO2 intensities would
not be enough to meet the UNEP target. The figure
would instead be 5.7 per cent per year on average.
Now imagine a world in which incomes in the
poorest nations might reach parity with those in the
rich nations by 2050 and where instead of the weak
reduction target used in the UNEP report, we seek an
80 per cent reduction in global CO2 emissions over
2011 levels. In such a world, the average annual CO2
intensity in both regions would have to decline by
8.6 per cent per year. This is a sustained rate of reduction for which there is absolutely no historical
precedent and for which the prospects look entirely
unrealistic. The numbers just do not stack up.
There are many other scenarios that can and
should be considered besides those discussed here.
Extending the time over which income equality
is achieved would help lessen the rate at which
CO2 intensities have to decline. A slower rate of
economic growth, especially in the high-income
countries, where the case for increasing economic
output is weakest, would also reduce the rate of
reduction in CO2 intensities required to meet any
specified level of reduction in global CO2 emissions. But this is the crux of the matter: economic
growth can undermine the achievement of environmental objectives.
Peter Victor
Dr. Peter Victor, author of Managing
without Growth. Slower by Design, not
Disaster, is a Professor in Environmental Studies at York University.
He has worked for over 40 years in
Canada and abroad on economy and
environment as an academic, consultant and public servant. Dr. Victor
was the founding president of the
Canadian Society of Ecological Eco-
64
Beyond the dilemma of growth
Our arguments in this article have revealed
some serious question marks hanging over UNEP’s
report. The UNEP Green Economy is blessed with
partisan investment advantages, unrealistic in its
modeling of regional differences and nothing like
green enough in its carbon targets. To claim on
this basis that green growth is faster than brown
growth is highly misleading.
It is easy enough to see why people will go to
great lengths to save the idea of economic growth.
When growth falters, as it has done recently, bad
things happen. People lose their jobs. Firms go out
of business. Sovereign debt begins to rise. Governments who fail to respond appropriately quickly find
themselves out of office. In these circumstances, it
is enormously tempting to focus on escape routes
from the dilemma of growth that save growth and
assume that it can be made sustainable.
If wishes were horses, then beggars would
ride. It is one thing to wish for a Green Economy.
It is quite another, of course, to define it, to design
it and to deliver it. There is no point hoping that
by putting two words that we like together the
result will be something that works. The Green
Economy concept is perhaps one step closer to
reality in this respect than the related concept of
“green growth”, which is often used in an entirely
aspirational fashion. But the relationship between
the Green Economy and growth remains critical.
If the Green Economy is still to be a growthbased economy—even in the richest nations—
then the arguments in this article suggest that it
must achieve completely unprecedented, almost
certainly unrealistic, levels of
improvement in technological efficiency. No one has yet come up
with a convincing set of proposals for how this is to be achieved.
Perhaps it is time to pay
some attention to the second
escape route from the dilemma
of growth: defining, designing
and delivering a Green Econonomics and a past-president of the
my in which economic stability
Royal Canadian Institute for the Adno longer rests on the unrealisvancement of Science. Currently he is
tic assumption of never-ending
Chair of Ontario’s Greenbelt Council,
growth. — [D]
a member of the Board of the David
This article is based on a more deSuzuki Foundation, and several advitailed account given in “A commentary
sory boards in the public and private
on UNEP’s Green Economy Scenarios”,
Ecological Economics (2012). Science
sectors. In 2011 he was awarded the
Direct (doi number - 10.1016/j.ecoleCanada Council for the Arts Molson
con.2012.02.028).
Prize in the Social Sciences.
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Cartoon Louise Smith
D imensions Ca rtoon
But how will we get there?
Human D imens i on s
65
Vo ices
Tony Blair
Former Prime Minister of the UK
need more slogans or
“callsWetodon’t
do the impossible. We need
Opinions
What does the world have to say about the Green Economy,
and its role in securing a sustainable future? We looked across
the globe to see what people—from aspiring young leaders to
high-ranking politicians—think about this complex and widely
debated idea.
to take what is possible, do it and
build on it. In that way we multiply our own efforts and accelerate
our progress to a low carbon future
and Green Economy. That is the
practical road to the future and we
should take it.”
Achim Steiner
Frederick Reinfeldt
Executive Director of UNEP
Prime Minister of Sweden
“
challenge of attain“ingThea Green
Economy and
The Green Economy is emerging, in part driven
by the financial and economic crisis, and in part
because of a growing realization that the blunt
and limited markets of the past are unlikely to
sustain the current global population of six billion
people, rising to nine billion by 2050.”
sustainable society is huge,
but there is no alternative.”
Bharrat Jagdeo
Hu Jintao
Former President of Guyana
President of China
If this is to become a re“ality,
“
we need to look to
the day where the term
Green Economy is no lon-
Md. Mahmudul Alam
We will step up our efforts to develop a Green Economy, a low carbon
economy, and a circular economy
and enhance research, development
and dissemination of climate friendly technologies.”
ger relevant.”
Bangladesh and Malaysia
Kari
Jackson
Cameroon
“
Green Economies are economies that grow
without compromising the needs of
the future humankind and thereby
allowing a fair and equitable access
to the earth’s resources. Need for it
in my community.”
66
Lu Yu
China and Germany
“
The transition to a Green Economy is a long
term up-hill task, especially in densely populated
developing countries, such as China. However,
moving towards a Green Economy also brings
with it an opportunity to protect the planet from
otherwise worse effects of increasing uncertainty
caused by climate change.”
Christiana Figueres
Sohn Kyung-shik
Executive Secretary of UNFCCC
Chairman of the Korean Chamber
of Commerce
is going to leave all
“ofChina
us in the dust. They’re
committed to winning the
Green Economy race.
”
“
I believe that business leaders
need to actively contemplate the role
of business in promoting the Green
Economy, based on a long-term perspective.”
Join the conversation on Facebook
www.facebook.com/humandimensions
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
Photos UN Photo, and provided by the authors
“
The Green Economy is a broad
and aggregate concept of sustainable
economy, sustainable livelihood, sustainable society, sustainable environment, and sustainable development,
but it is not really Green until the
most deprived person gets the access
of food, security and the core opportunities of mainstream sustainable
practices at local and global level.”
Suyash Jolly
Barack Obama
India and the Netherlands
President of the USA
‘true Green Economy' is when
“theA poor
are able to attain a state
We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology and
especially clean energy technology—
an investment that will strengthen
our security, protect our planet and
create countless new jobs for our
people.”
“
of well-being through their own and
sustained and collective efforts from
institutional entrepreneurship.”
Tina Saavedra Clemente
Felipe Calderón
Philippines
President of Mexico
“
“
A Green Economy encapsulates a target scenario
for development where the dynamics of economics, environment and governance bring about sustainability. While the global challenge is to reform
existing perspectives that underpin international
agreements, in the national context, a Green Economy must motivate increasing stakeholder ownership and dialogue over their own future.
The vision of a Green Economy can be a contentious subject given the tension between the
ideal and the constraints posed by the interaction among the spheres of economics, environment and institutions. Nevertheless, it is worth
the attention in the
sustainable development discourse as perspectives are supposed
to be challenged and
improved for greater
applicability in national contexts and greater
reform in complimentary global advocacies.”
David Cameron
Prime Minister of the UK
The transition to a low“carbon
economy is necessary, real and global.”
Sri Lanka
What can we do to build a Green
Economy for the world? I think that
we need to transfer into action the
creativity and innovation that we
can see around the world. We need
to transform. We need to change
individual actions in favour of massive actions through public policy.”
survival
“andThewell-being
of all life within planetary
boundaries.”
Yuti A. Fatimah
Indonesia and the Netherlands
“
I see the definition of Green Economy coined by UNEP as something
elusive due to its ambition to address
human well-being, environmental
risks and ecological scarcities in one shot. The good bit of a
broad definition is its ability to accommodate various interests,
but on the other hand, it might lead to unproductive initiatives
that are rooted in the problem of uncertainty. To overcome this
dilemma, I prefer to see the Green Economy as a moral movement towards an inclusive development: the willingness to become reflexive and a spirit for not harming others.”
_ _
Taro Aso
Former Prime Minister of Japan
“
Nalaka
Geekiyanage
The Green Economy
is a great opportunity
for new growth.”
Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General of the UN
“
Building a Green Economy presents tremendous opportunities. The only risk we face is in
not going down this path.”
Abdul Saboor
Jacob Zuma
Pakistan
President of South Africa
“
We have no option but to
“manage
our natural resourc-
For Pakistan, a Green Economy means reforestation and conservation of mainstream agriculture with the aim of food security, mitigating rural poverty and making urban development
with reduced carbon foot prints. Pro-poor green growth rather
than pro-rich would have to be encouraged and emphasized in
the policy dossier. Thus, the dream of a peaceful and an environmentally friendly community could be materialized without compromising the social
and economic equity and the genuine needs of present and future generations.”
Human D imens i on s
es in a sustainable way. We
have no choice but to be ecofriendly. We have no choice
but to develop a Green Economy.”
67
In t e rview
Greening
the Urban
Jungle
With more than half of the
world population living in
cities, urban planning must
adapt to new models of sustainable development. Xuemei Bai explains how governments and institutions can
catch up to technology in the
race to save the planet.
Interviewer Carmen Scherkenbach
D: A major topic at the summit
will be the Green Economy. How
does a Green Economy contribute to sustainable development?
XB: If we look at some of the definitions of a Green Economy, one can
see it is about an economy that is
inclusive and competitive and that
has higher resource efficiency and
lower environmental impact. So, in
a sense it is not a very different con-
68
cept compared to sustainable development but perhaps with a bit more
positive spin in our way of approaching the problem. It is really about
seeing sustainable development as
an opportunity and seizing it rather
than something that you only have
to sacrifice for.
D: What does a Green Economy
mean for sustainable urban development in particular?
XB: More than half of the world
population is now living in cities and
this share will continue to go up. In
developing countries, urbanization
is often concurrent with industrialization and in many places it is
also a process of the urbanization of
poverty. Cities have disproportionally high resource consumption and
environmental impact. For example,
they produce about 78 per cent of all
CO2 emissions and are also the center of economic development. Cities
like Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh have
about 20 per cent of their countries’
national population, but they produce 50 per cent of their GDP. Cities are also centers of innovation
and knowledge production. So by
all means, the Green Economy is of
vital importance for urban develop-
ment.
D: Which policy instruments
should be put into place?
XB: First of all, there won’t be one
set of policy instruments that can fix
all the problems cities are facing today. However, in terms of principles
in designing policy instruments, I
think it is very important to have
an integrative systems approach towards our problem. Urban development has to be a development that
takes into consideration its impact,
for example, on agriculture and other ecosystems regarding their physical footprint. We also have to think
about resource use efficiency and the
environmental impact and reduce
the metabolic flows through our cities, for instance through using more
renewable energies like solar power.
In a country like China, it will also be
very important for the national government to introduce performance
measures that can give incentives
and encourage the mayors of cities
to adopt a Green Economy concept,
rather than the GDP growth rate as
their only performance indicator.
D: Are there implementation
barriers in the way of a transition
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
P hoto Xuem ei B a i
DIMENSIONS: Professor Bai,
looking at the Rio+20 Summit
that is going to take place in
June, what outcomes you expect from this event?
Prof. Xuemei Bai: Twenty years
ago when we had the Rio Summit
it was a landmark in many ways and
we all know the sustainable development notion has been widely accepted by now. Since then, there has
been many research and debate and
some practices in terms of sustainable development. I hope that this
summit can come up with a more
action-oriented resolution that can
bring about real action and tangible
results, that is probably more important than coming up with another
set of concepts.
towards sustainability within the
field of urban development? Is
this a question of technology or
rather one of institutions?
XB: I think this is a very interesting question. Recently we’ve looked
into 30 different urban sustainability practices in Asian cities, trying to find out what initiated these
practices, in other words, to find out
about the triggers; who was playing
a major role in implementing the
practices; about the kind of linkage
networks within which the practice
has been implemented; what kind
of barriers they are facing; and what
their eventual pathways of these
practice followed. Our research findings show that the policy change and
the institutional aspect are far more
important facilitators, as well as
barriers, in bringing about sustainability transition. It is so much more
important than access to the technology itself, which is, in a sense, a
surprising finding. It also shows that
most of the international financial
agency-funded projects tend to stay
experiments and are rarely upscaled
to change the system of practice. I
think this has many implications.
For example, international and bilateral aiding agencies need to think
seriously about how to design aiding
projects that go beyond technology
transfer or beyond a one-off project,
as well as how to facilitate the local
processes in urban sustainability
practice development.
D: What has been the most encouraging development of the
Green Economy so far?
XB: I would say the recognition of
the importance of the Green Economy in a country like China is the
most important progress in forwarding this concept. We have just talked
about the main barriers being policy
and institutional aspects rather than
the technology itself, so I think highlevel recognition at the national level
of the importance of a Green Economy should be considered as the most
important step forward that can
Human D imens i on s
bring about cascading effects down
the road.
D: Do you see a time in the near
future in which a Green Economy will be business-as-usual in
cities and what would be some
of the underlying mechanisms
to get there?
XB: Yes—it certainly has to be, at
least. The traditional development
patterns have proven to be problematic and for up and coming countries like China and India there are
hard limitations in terms of resource
availability and environmental impact which makes it almost impossible for them to follow the same kind
of development pathways. For cities
it is the same. Regarding a mechanism how to get there, I would really like to see that we find the answer from the real world practice.
There are many cities that have been
very successful and innovative by
bringing a Green Economy practice
through, for example by proliferating renewable energy. I think we can
learn a lot from these front-runners.
As the scientific community, we can
contribute and facilitate this kind of
learning process through extracting
and building up common knowledge
that can be transferred to other cities
or other circumstances. — [D]
Xuemei Bai
Xuemei Bai is a Professor in Urban Environment at Fenner School
of Environment and
Society, Australian
National University.
With an educational
background in science
and engineering, and
research experience in
urban sustainability
sciences, Prof. Bai’s current research focuses
on urban sustainability science, including
For more related work
from Prof. Bai refer to her
papers: “Landscape Urbanization and Economic
Growth in China: Positive
Feedbacks and Sustainability Dilemmas” and
“Urban sustainability experiments in Asia: patterns
and pathways”. See www.
ihdp.unu.edu/article/library
for more information.
understanding the
structure, function and
processes of urban social ecological systems,
the environmental and
ecosystem consequences and drivers of
urbanization, urban
metabolism, urban
energy system and the
role of renewable energy, climate mitigation
and adaptation of cities, innovative practices
in urban environmental management, and
urban sustainability
transition in Asia.
69
C r o ss word
1
2
3
4
5
6
8
7
17
16
11
10
9
18
21
20
23
25
26
27
28
30
29
31
32
35
36
37
40
39
38
43
42
46
47
48
51
53
55
54
60
65
57
58
62
61
66
67
72
78
73
75
74
76
81
80
82
84
83
88
89
92
96
64
70
79
87
63
69
68
71
77
56
97
93
94
99
98
102
101
105
104
Green
Economy
Crossword
70
Across
1.Means of conveyance
9. Their actions strongly influence
the course of events
16.Important food fish of northern
Atlantic waters
17. Fab Fourth’ fifth wheel?
19.Sans attire
20.Under consideration in a written
work or speech
21. Designate
22.Your “average” guy
23. Became more complex
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
100
12
13
14
15
19
22
24
33
34
41
44
45
50
49
52
59
85
90
86
91
95
103
106
25. Wind down
29. The Green Economy will be
widely debated there
32. A one stringed guitar and UN
institute
33. “Absolutely” in Paris
35.It’s little and white
38. The prevention of loss
41. Welcome guest on a farm
42.Number one on FDI penetration
43.Initials of former European
empire
44.Pronoun
46. Capital of Africa’s most populous country
47.Such as wind and wave power
49.Number two in carbon dioxide
emissions
51.Just friends
53.Out of sorts
54. This people throw for money
56. Amélie, for one
59.Romney likes it there (abbr.)
60. Can make websites sucessful
(abbr.)
62. Tells about your full climate
change impact
65.Makes you cool (abbr.)
66. Zones prone to flooding
70. Key source of U.S. federal backing in the social sciences
71.Oil in Florence
72.Relating to Persia, modernized
75. Half a cocktail
76. The grass on the other side
77.Joint initiative by UNEP and
IHDP on wealth
79. Green vegetable dye imported
from China
80. Botanists’ concern
81. Brother of Abel
83.One of Jupiter’s moons
84. Chemical symbol for lithium
87. Clutter containing radionuclides
89.UN agency concerned with
atomic energy
90.Ma Ying-jeou just got his renewed
92. A 1997 protocol is named after
it
94. Approximately 3.14159
95. Global affairs concentration at
uni (abbr.)
96.Relating to the refreshment of
health or spirits (adj.)
99.Russian-born composer of “The
Firebird” (died 1971)
101. Designated UN authority for
environmental issues (abbr.)
103.River in North-West Spain with
decreasing salmon stock
104. A reduction of which is most
desirable
105. To castigate
106. To lose weight or to escape
from danger
Down
1.Saying hello to a microphone
2.Miscellaneous (abbr.)
3.Snooze in Salamanca
4.Invented the gas motor engine
5. Kubrick probably shouted this
often
6. A small one
7.Just right
8.In the negative
9. After Yalta
10. Family of rechargeable battery
types (short form)
11.Not only children want this
12. A human’s largest joints
13.Made of 27
14. To ge to the other side, it was
crossed (abbr.)
15. The beginning of life
18. With chloride it’s salt (abbr.)
22. British economist and logician,
died 1882
24. Toiletry case
25.Inventor of dynamite (initials)
26.E.g. ethanol (pl.)
27.Preposition, indicates a price
28. Destination when immediate
medical care is needed (abbr.)
30. Avoids depletion or damage
31.Indian auto company
32.Social process, considered a
symbol of human civilization
33.Initials of soul, jazz singer: Oleta
__
34. GDP is one
35. For some it’s the sky
36.Something is fashionable
37. We’re all on it together
38. Doesn’t need social media to
tweet
39. Austria’s biggest airport (abbr.)
40.Its secretariat is based in Bonn
41.Some are renewable
42.Saving on the way to earning
45.Small house
48. A leg
50.Not in favour of
52.Options
55. Tennessee Williams had it on a
hot tin roof
57.Indicates an alternative
58. Wasting as little as possible
(adj.)
61. Green prefix
63.Most populous Canadian province
64.Organisation to protect U.S.
information systems (abbr.)
67. When a PC starts thinking
(abbr.)
68.Of the sun
69.Person maintaining a relationship
73. The very cause of things
74.Its members are bears and lions
(abbr.)
76. A member of the U.S. army
(abbr.)
78.Use again
82. Between Greece and Turkey
85. Controlled by a mouse
86.Native of an Equatorial land
88.Name of several Chinese dynasties
91.Number of South African provinces
93. Vienna-based 12-member oil
group (abbr.)
94.Might even get you coffee
(abbr.)
96. Helps wash a car
97.Number of India’s main language families
98. Calendar month (abbr.)
99.Remained in one place (past-p)
100.Mythical giant bird
101.It’s __ against them
102.It’s all about reputation (abbr.)
Solutions to the crossword puzzle will be available on IHDP’s new blog at the end of April,
have a look and see how you’ve done at: www.ihdp.unu.edu/article/blog
Human D imens i on s
71
References
Quotes
Achim Steiner
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Report_30July.pdf
Barack Obama
http://www.politicususa.com/
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Manmohan Singh
h t t p : // w w w . w h i t e h o u s e . g o v /
the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-singh-india-joint-press-conference
Wen Jiabao
http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/
zxxx/t630498.htm
Ban Ki-moon
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Report_30July.pdf
Felipe Calderon
http://ngb.tv/2011/06/a-greeneconomy-is-possible/
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DID YOU KNOW THAT?
Up with patents
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Growth. OECD, Paris.
First adopters
http://www.guyanatimesinternational.com/?p=7769
What a waste
72
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content/documents/Agriculture_
OECD.pdf
mate Change and Create a New
Era of Progress and Prosperity.The
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De-urban
http://www.projecthope.ws/index.
php?option=com_content&task=v
iew&id=32&Itemid=33
3. TEEB. 2011. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Business. Edited by Joshua Bishop.
Earthscan, London. Available online
at www.teebweb.org
Canned Energy
http://wsn.com.au/dir138/wsn.nsf/
Content/Education%20and%20
Safety_Facts%20and%20Figures_
Did%20you%20know
Auto Giants
h t t p : // s u s t a i n a b l e l a f a y e t t e .
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Left in the Cold
http://outdoornebraska.ne.gov/
wildlife/programs/legacy/facts.asp
Life in Coral
http://www.cinews.co.ck/2010/
January/Wed27/environment.htm
Mangroovy
http://conservationbytes.com/tag/
ecosystem-services/
Carbon Grove
http://conservationbytes.com/tag/
ecosystem-services/
That’s fresh
http://borealcanada.ca/borealdid-you-know-e.php
Boreal Bank
http://borealcanada.ca/borealdid-you-know-e.php
Human Crops
http://www.unesco.org/water/
news/newsletter/193.shtml#know
Irrigators
http://www.unesco.org/water/
news/newsletter/193.shtml#know
IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN
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Limits to Dematerialisation. Special
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Green
Investment
Scenarios
http://www.unep.org/greeneconomy/Portals/88/documents/ger/
GER_13_Modelling.pdf
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HEGEMONY
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Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
it site
OisW
,Nv eb
tRs w
TuEl 2
eISs 01
ErGr 2
FRo LAN
eP
th
A major international conference to provide scientific leadership towards the
2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development - Rio+20
Top international plenary speakers and more than 100 sessions and
side events will provide a state of the planet assessment for Rio +20.
Coverage includes: climate change, ecological degradation, human wellbeing, planetary thresholds, food security, energy, governance across scales
and poverty.
SCIENCE r POLICY r DEVELOPMENT r INVESTMENT
INDUSTRY r ENGINEERING r TECHNOLOGY r MEDIA
www.planetunderpressure2012.net
Organised by the global-change research programmes of the International Council for Science
And their Earth System Science Partnership
Human D imens i on s
75
Co mm entary
Sustainability:
Reassessing what we
count and measure
There is much to like about Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing, the final
report released January 30 by the UN Secretary
General’s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability, co-chaired by Finnish President Tarja Halonen
and South African President Jacob Zuma. The
Panel acknowledges past successes while recognizing the failure and indeed inability of the current global political-economic order to implement
the drastic changes necessary to bring about what
could truly be deemed “sustainability”. It presents
a vision for a “sustainable planet, just society and
growing economy,” as well as 56 policy recommendations for realizing that vision. It is arguably
“We need new indicators
that tell us if we are
destroying the productive
base that supports our
well-being.”
the most prominent international call for a radical
redesign of the global economy ever issued. Yet for
all its rich content, the Panel’s report is less secure
on concrete, practical solutions, and its most valuable short-term recommendation—the replacement of current development indicators (GDP
or variants thereof) with more comprehensive,
inclusive metrics for wealth—seems tacked on
almost as an afterthought. Without quick, decisive international movement to prioritize sustain-
76
ability at the expense of the status quo, the report
risks suffering the fate of its 1987 predecessor, the
pioneering Brundtland Report, which introduced
the concept of sustainability at the international
level and similarly called for a paradigm shift, but
which was not followed with action.
The world today is “experiencing the best of
times, and the worst of times”, begins the Panel,
setting the contrasting tone for the full report: as
a whole, the globe is experiencing unparalleled
prosperity; great strides are being made to reduce global poverty; technological advancements
are revolutionizing untold corners of life across
the world, stamping out diseases and transforming communication. At the same time, inequality remains stubbornly high and in many areas
is increasing; short-term political and economic
strategies are driving consumerism and debt
while putting ever-greater stress on the natural
environment; the global population is soaring,
projected to reach nearly 9 billion by 2040. By
2030, notes the Panel, “the world will need at
least 50 per cent more food, 45 per cent more energy and 30 per cent more water—all at a time
when environmental boundaries are throwing
up new limits to supply”. Despite our advancements, it is concluded, humanity has not used
the past 25 years to conserve resources, safeguard
natural ecosystems, or otherwise ensure its own
long-term viability.
The question is nevertheless begged: is a
statement—however powerful—enough? Will the
world now rally to this international call to “transform the global economy”, when it did not 25 years
ago? While the planet is undoubtedly facing a
number of perilous crises, it may be crisis itself out
of which real action is born. As the Panel points
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s
P hoto Lo uis e Smith
Partha Dasgupta and Anantha Duraiappah
out, it has never been clearer that a paradigm shift
is necessary to achieve truly sustainable global development within planetary boundaries.
But what is the nature of planetary boundaries? Who will coordinate an international process
of studying them and who will ensure that scientific findings flow into meaningful public policy
processes? These are concrete questions that demand concrete solutions. The next step must be
a significant international and interdisciplinary
scientific effort to tackle these issues comprehensively; therefore the Panel’s recommendation of
setting up an international science panel is a step
in the right direction. However, creating such a
body will take time and the challenge is to get the
best science to policy—in a way that is credible,
legitimate and salient.
The 2010 Report on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, commissioned by French President Sarkozy, echoed the
current consensus among social scientists that we
are mis-measuring our lives by using per capita
GDP as our yardstick for progress. We need new
indicators that tell us if we are destroying the
productive base that supports our well-being. An
immediate move could be to mobilize and shore
up those organizations that are creating new development indicators to internalize the social and
environmental costs of economic growth.
The International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) with support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and contributions from the UN-Water Decade Programme
on Capacity Development (UNW-DPC) and the Natural Capital Project, Stanford University, is with
its Inclusive Wealth Report (IWR) already aiming to
provide answers to the crucial question of how we
Human D imens i on s
accurately measure the productive base and wellbeing. With the development of this first report on
the wealth and changes in the productive base of
nations, the project provides a capital approach to
sustainability based on a portfolio of stocks of various assets or “wealth”, including natural capital,
produced capital, human and social capital. The
main objectives of the IWR are to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the different components of
wealth by country and their link to economic development and human well-being. The IWR pays
particular attention to natural and human capital
and shows how to formulate policies that are based
on the social management of asset portfolios.
The first IWR, focusing on a selection of 20
countries worldwide, will be officially launched
at a joint UNEP and IHDP side event at Rio+20.
Preliminary findings will be presented during the
Planet Under Pressure Conference in London in
late March. The IWR stands for a crucial first step
in changing the global economic paradigm, by
forcing us to reassess our needs and goals as a society, and ensuring we have the correct information
with which to implement and assess our economic development and improved well-being. It is not
intended as the universal indicator for sustainability. But it does offer a rigorous framework for dialogue with multiple constituencies representing
the environmental, social and economic fields.
Our situation is critical and, as the Panel aptly
put it, “tinkering around the margins” will no longer suffice—a warning to those counting on renewable energy technologies and the Green Economy
to solve our problems. The call for a radical paradigm shift in the global economic system has been
again made. Our challenge now will be to follow up
words and recommendations with action. — [D]
77
IHDP
International Human Dimensions
Programme on Global Environmental Change
Hermann-Ehlers-Straße 10
53113 Bonn, Germany
www.ihdp.unu.edu
78
Hu m a n D im e n s io n s