Download Sustainable Development and the Environment Issues

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT & THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Prof. Emeritus Winston A Mellowes
7th October 2010
Sustainable Development
Sustainable Development not only entails making the best use of the resources available to us;
it also means maximizing the amount of resources themselves.
Environment
• The sum total of the physical, biological, chemical, economic and socio-cultural
features of the landscape: Sum Total of Physical, chemical, economic and sociocultural features of landscape.
• Human Environment - Settlements, services, utilities, manufacturing industry and
tourism etc.
Environmental assessments are used to evaluate industrial developments for proposed
industries, while Environmental Audits are used for Existing Industries. Risk Assessments
are used for unusual but often catastrophic events.
Ecosystem is a complex web or network:
• Physical Characteristics (Soil, water, air, climate, land use, land characteristics.)
• Ecological Characteristics (habitats, communities, species.)
• Human Activity Patterns (Demography, employment structure, transportation)
• Infrastructure (Electricity, gas, sewerage, solid waste disposal, housing,
telecommunications) Social and Community Services (Health facilities etc)
• Existing Pollution (Air Pollution, Water pollution, noise and vibration,
radioactivity)
• How does Plant or Process relate to ecosystem?
Most economies have environmental statutes to cover air, water, wastes, ecosystem
protection, public health etc.. Statutes are supposed to protect local ecosystems and public
health. Despite having resources and systems in place Ecosystems continue to be
impacted. Public health reflects the impact of manmade pollutants and these Impacts are
trans-boundary and global. There appears to be heavy investments with diminishing
benefits.
The massive industrial system in the world has afforded civilization the options of being
healthier, living longer, having a higher standard of living and more fulfilling occupations.
However this has often put the environment at risk because of the unintended consequences of
industrialization. As of now, maintaining the health of this life support system emerges as one of
industries greatest priorities.
Everyone wants a safe, healthy environment for oneself and family. This responsibility is shared
by all. There will be compromise along the way, but we must not compromise the common
good. Continued economic growth is needed, but it must be achieved above all, in concert with
what may be termed an environmental covenant.
Some concerns that have been expressed are as follows:
 Sufficient knowledge of statutes and responsibilities of key players
 Compliance by business, institutions municipalities (complexity, volume,
paperwork); including SMEs
 Adequate enforcement by regulators and agencies
 Crowded courts and speed of arbitration
 Influence of ENGO’s
 Level of concern by media, public
Economies are looking for ways to protect ecosystems, prevent harm and manage better
e.g:
- smart regulation internally
- harmonization horizontally within regions/trading partners
- negotiated performance agreements or voluntary EMS
- risk assessments vs. specification
- public liaison committees
- resource sharing to build capacity
One strategy is that prevention is better than cure. One must aim to eliminate pollution, not by
Eliminating industry, but by preventing the waste products from industry, from becoming a
problem. The question is HOW?
This can mean working at the cutting edge of scientific knowledge and developing new, cost
effective technology across the engineering spectrum. For instance, for the
petrochemical/petroleum industry, prevention means engineering a new generation of fuels,
lubricants and chemical products. This can include molecular structures that pass harmlessly
through the environment and living organisms. It means designing new catalysts and processes
that minimize or eliminate unwanted by-products.
Sustainable Development:
Challenges
• Criteria of sustainability added to evaluation of technical investment decisions
• Profitability considerations may conflict with environmental imperatives
• Major concepts & Impacts on corporations
• Fulfilling of socially desirable goals
• Volume of tort litigation
What is sustainable Development?
• It is a goal, a process and a concept.
• It is a …. better world in which people will live quality lives, & the natural environment
is protected (goal)
• It is a process of changing human economic activities, disseminating knowledge and
skills and taking action (process)
•
It is complex: natural resources have limits/what is a good quality of life/how much mistreatment can eco-systems stand/what is the relationship of humans and nature (concept)
(F. Scott Slocombe, 1993)
Key Attributes:
• Building capital, living off interest
• Differentiate needs from wants
• There are limits on resources
• Appreciating new perspectives
• Change is constant in the world, nothing remains the same
• Giving future generations the same opportunities enjoyed by present generations
S&D dimensions:
• Social well-being
• Good governance
• Ecological quality
• Economic prosperity
How to achieve S D?
• We must recognize the challenge before us
• We must appreciate the interconnections
• We must engage others in constructive partnerships
• We must act with determination
• We must be aware of our individual and our collective responsibility
• We must be cognizant of human dignity at all times
We must therefore make good decisions
Economic Capital
• Economic Capital refers to man-made capital ( physical produced assets and the built
environment).
• The amount one can consume during a period and still be as well off at the end of the
period.
• Focus on consuming the interest from a business rather than the capital.
Natural Capital:
• Stock of natural assets that yield goods and services on a continuous basis.
• Main functions of natural capital include resource production ( such as fish, timber, etc)
• Waste assimilation such as carbon dioxide absorption, sewage decomposition etc.)
• Life-support services ( u.v. protection, biodiversity, water cleansing, etc.)
Social & Human Capital:
• Moral values of society
• Focuses on the people in society.
• People’s – skills, education, health, their capacity to participate in decisions that affect
their lives.
• Social capital requires replenishment by shared values, and equal rights and by
community, religious and cultural interactions.
• Social and human capital will and can depreciate and deteriorate without care.
•
•
Social and human capital therefore has to be nurtured in order to achieve sustainable
development.
The problem is “how to nurture it”!
Role of Human Capital
• Human capital forms the foundation as the networks and relationships in a society that
encourage trust and reciprocity, thereby shaping the quality and quantity of a society’s
social interactions.
• For social sustainability there needs to be creation and maintenance of social capital (
people, their skills, education, health
Sustainable Limits:
• Renewable source - Sustainable rate equals or less than rate of generation
• Non - renewable sources - Not greater than rate of which renewable substitutes are
developed
• Pollutant - Sustainable rate must be no greater than rate of assimilation by environment
Sustainable Energy Future:
• This encompasses not only the imperative of securing adequate energy to meet future
needs, but doing so in a way that:
• Preserves the underlying integrity of natural systems including averting dangerous
climate change
• Extends basic energy services to all people worldwide who lack access to modern forms
of energy
• Reduce potential for conflict in competing for unevenly distributed energy sources.
• There is a social, technological, economic and political dimension.
Factors Affecting:
• High energy consumption in developing countries
• Continued population growth
• Rapid industrialisation
• An entrenched, capital intensive and long lived energy infrastructure
• Rising demand for energy services
• Wide disparities in per capita energy consumption.
• Resource limitations.
• How well can countries work together.
Energy Demand & Efficiency:
• Changes in way energy is supplied and used.
• Possible to maximise progress to improve social well being without concomitant growth
in energy consumption.
• Energy intensity – the ratio of energy consumed to goods and services provided must
decline.
• Advances in engineering, materials and system design have made it possible to construct
buildings that demonstrate zero-net energy consumption and vehicles that radically lower
gasoline consumption per unit of distance travelled.
•
•
Challenge to reduce the cost of these technologies.
Financial incentives mechanisms required.
What to Do?
• Must utilize more fully resources with which they are endowed.
• Abundant inexhaustible supply of solar energy and wind power due to geographic
location.
• Can save foreign exchange and reduce quantities of pollutants associated with other
combustible fuels
• Production must be kept to a level not to trigger negative impacts as these and other nontraditional resources become available.
• RENEWABLEENERGY
• The adoption of renewable energy sources is an option in the drive for sustainable
development. By definition, renewable energy resources do not include the exhaustible
stock of fossil and nuclear fuels.
• They do include Hydropower and 'Solar, Biomass, Geothermal, Wind and Tidal power.
For renewable energy technologies to be efficient, they must possess at least 4 basic
capacities for storage, conversion, concentration and ease of transportation.
• The basic requirement of RE technology is energy storage. This is important since the
economy's rates of consumption do not often correspond to the natural rate of emission of
renewable energy flows. Thus while the amount may be sufficient for a given task, it may
have to be converted into a stock before it can be used i.e. Dam.
• Another requirement is the capacity to convert natural flows into the ultimately usable
forms required by society. e.g. Hydropower and tidal power are gravitational, but most
end uses of energy in the economy are mechanical, thermal or electrical. Thus renewable
energy may require not only conversion into a stock but also a conversion of its form.
• The third basic requirement is the capacity to concentrate energy flows. Many routine
functions of energy in the economy calls for energy flows at a higher level than those
found among the natural flows of renewable energy sources. While many RE resources
contain enormous potential in the aggregate, they must be significantly concentrated and
moderated if they are to be successful in the roles now performed by fossil and nuclear
fuels.
•
• RE technology must be able to transport energy to its point of end use. They need to be
transported to ultimate points of consumption. That many RE flows are dispersed
suggests that storage, conversion and transportation are simultaneous requirements if
RET is to be successful. Indeed if one compares those characteristics of RET with those
of exhaustible resource technologies, it is not surprising that the world's economy should
have drawn so heavily and so long on finite energy supplies since EXET stocks are now
faced with diminishing economic returns. One has to examine how the diverse types of
RE resources can be converted into usable energy forms.