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Sustainable development: An interdisciplinary approach
Ly Vuong
Abstract:
Economic growth, the right to development, and environmental protection are the
biggest concerns in order to reach sustainable development. However, often these
three values are in competition with one another. Environmental protection imposes
“sustainable” use of natural resources, environmental services and ecological
system. Besides, this ‘sustainable use” also accommodates human right concept of
“intergenerational fairness” and “intra-generational fairness”. This paper aims to
find possible solutions for environment protection and right to development within
the framework of economics, while still ensuring economic growth. A pollution
trading system has been set up, and a “safe minimum standard” has been proposed
in order to satisfy these needs.
1.
Environmental sustainability: Global warming, and biodiversity loss
The nature is being endangered, that what has been heard. Even when human has
done a lot of things to become less independent on nature, their lives themselves
still depends on nature, or in general sense, nature means life.
Human, during their daily life, have changed the nature, either in better or worse
ways, and some are threatening the natural environment. In this paper, we talk
about global warming, and biodiversity loss.
The world climate is changing rapidly, and getting worse, in a serious way. The
Stern Review (2007) indicated that a doubling of pre-industrial levels of greenhouse
gases is likely to commit the Earth to a rise from 2-5C in global temperature. If the
green house gases emission remained at current level, the concentration will reach
double pre-industrial level between 2030 and 2060, and triple level in 2100,
committing the world to 3-10C warming. (Stern 2007)
Global warming may affect significantly natural, ecological and social systems.
Global warming has been detected in a number of systems. Rising sea levels and
observed decreases in snow and ice extent are consistent with warming. Most of
the increase in global average temperature since the mid-20th century is, with high
probability,
attributable
to
human-induced
changes
in
greenhouse
gas
concentration.
Climate change is expected to particularly affect certain ecosystems, including
tundra, mangroves, and coral reefs.(IPCC 2007) It is expected that most
ecosystems will be affected by higher atmospheric CO2 levels, combined with higher
global temperatures. Overall, it is expected that climate change will result in the
extinction of many species and reduced diversity of ecosystems.
Biodiversity supports a number of natural ecosystem processes and services. Some
ecosystem services that benefit society are air quality climate, water purification,
pollination, and prevention of erosion.
Since the stone age, species loss has accelerated above the prior rate, driven by
human activity. The exact rate is uncertain, but during the last century, decreases
in biodiversity have been increasingly observed. 30% of all natural species will be
extinct by 2050 (Gabriel 2007). Almost all scientists acknowledge that the rate of
species loss is greater now than at any time in human history, with extinctions
occurring at rates hundreds of times higher than background extinction rates.
Therefore, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) from the United Nations World
Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg 2002, the seventh of the eight
goals was to ensure environmental sustainability, targeting:
-
Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and
programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
-
Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the
rate of loss (Schneider, S.H., S. Semenov, A. Patwardhan, I. Burton, C.H.D.
Magadza, M. Oppenheimer, A.B. Pittock, A. Rahman, J.B. Smith, A. Suarez and F.
Yamin 2007)
-
Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access
to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
-
Achieve, by 2020, a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100
million slum dwellers (MDG, 2002)
The environment needs to be sustained.
2.
Human right: “Intra-generational fairness” and “Intergenerational
fairness”
Let us examine the human rights view point in term of environment protection.
In general, there are two principles concerns about human societies’ current uses of
the environment.
Firstly, these uses are unacceptably damaging people’s quality of life in the present,
with phenomenon such as air or water pollution, massive projects destroying valued
landscapes, land erosion…Moreover, very often the victims of the damage are not
the same people who have benefited from the damaging activities. The Economics
of Ecosystem and Biodiversity (TEEB) interim report demonstrates the huge
significance of ecosystems and biodiversity and the threats to human welfare,
especially the poor:
A striking aspect of the consequences of biodiversity loss is their
disproportionate
but unrecognized impact on the poor. (TEEB 2008, 22)
This report also gives examples of the cases of Ethiopia and India. If climate change
resulted in a drought that halved the income of the poorest of the 28 million
Ethiopians, this would barely register on the global balance sheet – world GDP
would fall by less than 0.003%. The distributional challenge is particularly difficult
because those who have largely caused the problems – the rich countries – are not
going to suffer the most, at least not in the short term. Studies in the tribal regions
of Orissa and Chattisgarh states in India which were once heavily forested, have
recorded how deforestation has resulted in loss of livelihoods, in women having to
walk four times the distance to collect forest produce and in their inability to
accessmedicinal herbs which have been depleted. This loss reduces income,
increases drudgery and affects physical health. (TEEB 2008, 22)
The consequences of environmental degradation are not being shared equitably
across the world. The subsistence farmers, fishermen, the rural poor and traditional
societies face the most serious risks from degradation. This imbalance is likely to
grow. The global environmental costs arise overwhelmingly in high- and middleincome countries but are borne by low-income countries.
Therefore, environmental degradation has “direct and strong” (TEEB 2008, 22)
counter effect on the first Millennium Development Goal, which is to eradicate
extreme poverty and hunger.
Therefore, the idea of sustainability must imply considerations of fairness within the
human generation currently alive, or “intra-generational fairness”. The sources of
intragenerational duty arise from the fact that the poor countries lack resources to
practice sustainable development or to fulfil their intergenerational obligations.
They lack access to the legacy of resources left by previous generations; therefore,
wealthier countries and communities are obliged to help finance poorer countries
and communities.
The second concern is that the environmental impact from these uses may reduce
the quality of life, or even the prospects for survival of people in the future. This
concern implies consideration of fairness between present and future human
generations, or “intergenerational fairness”.
The concept of “intergenerational fairness” was indicated in Brundtland Commission
by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). That report
described sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs”. (WCED, 43)
Two relationships which shape the theory of intergenerational equity: "our
relationship to other generations of our own species and our relationship to the
natural system of which we are a part. Intergenerational equity embodies the
notion that the present generation holds the Earth's resources in trust for future
generations. (Weiss n.d.)
Three fundamental principles, the principle of conservation of options, the principle
of conservation of quality, and the principle of conservation of access. The principle
of the "conservation of options" requires each generation to preserve the diversity
of its natural and cultural heritage and emphasizes that diversity is essential to
conserve the options available to future generations in dealing with their problems.
To preserve options for future generations does not mean preserving the status
quo, but to conserve the diversity of the resource base for the future. The principle
of "conservation of quality" stresses that the quality of the planet that is inherited
by each generation should not be worse than the quality enjoyed by previous
generations. This implies that no generations are entitled to degrade the
environmental quality of the planet and would ensure a minimum standard of
quality for all generations. The principle of "conservation of access" requires
balancing justice requirements within and between generations, encompassing two
dimensions of equity: the intragenerational dimension, which requires that
members of the same generation enjoy equitable access to the resources inherited
from previous generations; and the intergenerational dimension, which means that
each generation should ensure to future generations equitable access to resources.
(Weiss 1990)
These concerns of human right are often regarded as a trade-off against economic
efficiency.
3.
Externality or sustainable economics
This paper looks into economics to find solution for environmental protection and
maintaining “intra-generational fairness”, and “intergenerational fairness”.
The importance of natural resources and the environment to economic activity and
human life in general has been acknowledged by economists since the early days of
economics. In classical economics, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo mentioned
the threat of human population growth at “geometrical ratio” against subsistence
increase at “arithmetical ratio”.
The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to
produce
substance
for
man.
Population,
when
unchecked,
increases
in
a
geometrical ration. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio…This implies
a strong and constantly operating check on population from subsistence. (Malthus
1970)
Both Ricardo and Malthus perceived that population could only grow by taking more
land into production which, assuming that the most fertile land had been used first,
would be of diminishing fertility. Taking this land into production would increase the
price of food and therefore raise the subsistence wage, reducing the profitability
both of the marginal agriculture and of industry. This diminishing profitability
reduce the incentive to investment, with profit “sinking to the lowest state required
to maintain the actual capital” (Malthus 1974) at length in a “stationary state” of
the economy with stagnant profits and investment and population growth
constantly kept in check by starvation.
The solutions to this stationary state, as
pointed by Malthus and Ricardo, were either technological progress or a halt in
population growth before the stationary state was reached.
This stationary state has been proved not to be inevitable, as high living standards
do not endanger population growth, that population growth can be reduced and
halted, and that the productive power of technology is enormous.
With the increasing scale of industrial activity in the 19th century, the effects in
terms of environmental degradation soon became obvious. The problem that the
growth of production might be at the expense of environmental enjoyments was
first recognized by the economist John Stuart Mill:
If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things
that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the
mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a better of happier
population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to
be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it. (Mill 1904)
A.C.Pigou described the effect of unintended and uncompensated loss to one person
of natural beauty, pleasantness and solitude in nature due to the economic activity
of another, or what is now called “externality”:
The essence of the matter is that one person A, in the course of rendering some
service, for which payment is made, to a second person B, incidentally also renders
services of disservices to other persons (not producers of like services), of such a
sort that payment cannot be exacted from the benefited parties of compensation
enforced on behalf on the injured parties. (Pigou 1932)
According to Ronald Coase (1960), the externality problem may be solved by the
clear legal delineation of property rights to the use of environmental resources, so
that environmental conflicts may be resolved through private negotiation. However,
this approach of property rights, while theoretically appealing, is often practically
infeasible to give strict definition to property rights over natural resources.
Another theoretically attractive approach to resolving the externality problem is to
seek to “internalize” the cost by levying a charge or tax on the activity concerned,
or on the environmentally damaging effect. This causes producers to reduce the
amount of damage they cause. Theoretically, it is possible to arrive at a point of
“optimal” environmental damage at which the marginal cost of the damage is
precisely equal to the marginal benefit of the activity that cause it.
Economic policy for sustainable development must solve three separate problems:
efficient allocation of resources for production, fair and adequate distribution of
resources to people, and setting an optimal scale of resource use at a point beyond
which further growth costs more than it is worth. (Daly 1996)
Pollution trading allows a polluter to forego reductions in pollution (or increase
pollution) at its own facility in exchange for reducing emissions elsewhere or by
purchasing credits which represent someone else’s pollution reduction. Pollution
trading advocates argue that this approach saves money, promotes innovative
technology, and continuously reduces pollution through market incentives. In
contrast, they claim that technology-based regulations, commonly referred to as
‘command and control’, are economically inefficient and rigidly over-prescriptive.
(Richard Toshiyuki Drury, Michael Belliveau, J. Scott Kuhn, Shipra Bansal 1999)
“Pollution trading” is used interchangeably with “emissions trading” to refer to one
kind of market-based environmental policy tool that provides for the buying, selling,
and use of emission reduction credits to more cost-effectively reduce pollution.
These programs have also been called marketable permit programs or permit
trading (Richard Toshiyuki Drury, Michael Belliveau, J. Scott Kuhn, Shipra Bansal
1999).
The safe minimum standard originally was developed in the context of individual
species preservation (Wantrup 1952). The logic in this setting is that standard
benefit-cost comparisons may be inadequate if the long-term cost of species loss is
highly uncertain but possibly quite substantial. Proponents of a safe minimum
standard argue that with low information but high potential asymmetry in the loss
function, the evenhanded assessment of benefit-cost analysis should give way to a
greater presumption in favor of species.
The logic of the safe minimum standard suggests that this impetus alone may not
fully satisfy reason-able obligations to future generations, particularly when the
negative effects involve large-scale ecological systems and long gestation period.
(Sorry, uncompleted job here. I plan to talk more about pollution trading in detail
and safe minimum standard here)
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