What is Sustainable Development

Introduction

1. WCED 2. Earth Summit3. WSSD4. MGD’s All these are important conferences

in which stress on Sustainable Development and introduced these latter and discuss on it.

WCED

The report of the World Commission on Environment and Development entitled Our Common Future (WCED, 1987) used term “sustainable development” and defined as “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own need.”

Their recommendations focused on integrating development strategies and environmental policies and global partnerships to meet the interdependent environmental concerns and development opportunities.

Earth SummitThe Earth Summit in Rio De Janerio, Brazil in

1992 was the largest ever international conference in which 116 heads of states gathered and first time and considered environment.

The central aim was to identify the principles of an agenda for action towards sustainable development in the future.

Agenda 21 document detailing the issues, the actors and the means for achieving sustainable development by putting into practice by the start of the 21 century.

Structure of Agenda 21

Social and economic

dimensions

Conservation and management of Resources and Development

Strengthening the Role of Major

Groups

Means of Implementation

A number of important conventions were also agreed at Rio, including the Convention on Biodiversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change in recognition of the growing problems of sustainable use of ecosystem and of human-induced climate change.

There was an optimism concerning a common interest on behalf of countries globally and between current and future generation that drive sustainable development into practice.

WSSD104 heads of state gathered again for the UN

World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The aim was to reinvigorate at the highest political level, the global commitment to a North-South partnership to achieve sustainable development.

Key concerns at the start of the 21 century were for the continued degradation of environmental systems since Rio, but also for the persistence of poverty and evidence of widening global disparities.

WSSD a central concern was the impacts of globalization on the poor.

People and places were closely linked together within global markets and through flows of finance.

Poverty, inequality and exclusion were identified as threats not just to the environment and economic prosperity but also to future security and democracy.

Millennium Development Goals

In 2000 the UN community had committed to the achievement of eight Millennium (MDG’s).

Rio+20 On 24th December 2009 the UN General Assembly adopted a

Resolution agreeing to hold the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in 2012 - also referred to as 'Rio+20' or 'Rio 20'. The Conference seeks three objectives:

The Member States have agreed on the following two themes for the Conference: green economy within the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication, and institutional framework for sustainable development

Since UNCED, sustainable development has become part of the international lexicon. The concept has been incorporated in many UN declarations and its implementation, while complex has been at the forefront of world’s institutions and organizations working in the economic, social and environmental sectors. However, they all recognize how difficult it has proven to grant the environmental pillar the same recognition enjoyed by the other two pillars despite the many calls by scientists and civil society signalling the vulnerability and precariousness of the Earth since the 1960s.

Securing renewed political commitment to sustainable

development.

Addressing new and emerging challenges.

Assessing the progress and implementation gaps in meeting already agreed

commitments.

The UK Government Principles of Sustainable Development

The Concept of Sustainable Development

Sustainable Development refers to maintaining development overtime.

As Jacob 1991 identified sustainable development is a contestable concept that like democracy or equality has a basic meaning that almost everyone is in favor but some conflicts also exists

Definitions of Sustainable Development

“In principle such an optimal(sustainable growth) policy would seek to maintain an Acceptable rate of

growth in per-capita real incomes

without depleting the national capital asset stock or the

natural environmental asset

stock.”(Turner, 1998)

“The net productivity of biomass (positive

mass balance per unit area per unit time)

maintained over decades to

centuries.”

(Conway, 1987)

“Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future

generations to meet their own needs.”

(WCED, 1987)

“A Sustainable society is one in

which people ability to do what they have

good reason to value is continually

enhanced.”

(Sen,1999)

Interpretations of Sustainable Development

“Like Motherhood, and God, it is difficult not to

approve of it. At the same time, the idea of sustainable

development is fraught with

contradiction.”

(Redclifft, 1997)

“It is distinguishable from the total

development of society.”

(Barbier, 1987)

“Its very ambiguity enables it to

transcends the tensions inherent in

its meaning.”

(O’ Riordan, 1995)

“Sustainable Development

appears to be an over-used,

misunderstood phrase.”

(Mawhinney, 2002)

Depiction Of Sustainable Development

Economic

Social

Natural

Disciplinary development of the conceptThe disciplines of very economics have also been

very important in shaping the concept and practices of sustainable development.

Their role in developing the notion of critical natural capital is explored.

Ecological economists have also developed a range of means for applying economic calculations to environmental resources towards costing resources and resource functions both as inputs to economic activity and in terms of degradation and pollution.

This work has underpinned a host of what are termed market-based mechanism towards achieving sustainable development in practice.

Critical Natural Capital: Capital that is required for survival. It can be viewed as functional (such as the

presence of the ozone layer or the atmosphere in general) or valued (e.g. rare species valued in terms

of their potential for health care).

Essentially market-based mechanism encompass measures to alter the economic costs of particular behaviors and production practices towards more sustainable outcomes. Example: environmental taxes on petrol use and solid waste disposal that make these practices more costly to individuals and businesses.

Sustainable development as a moral concept that seeks to define a fair and just development.

The concept of sustainable development is itself challenge.

Gibson suggest that out of great diversity of theoretical formulations & applications, an essential commonality of shared concerns & principles identified.

Concept of sustainability

A challenge to conventional thinking & practice.

Long-term and short-term well-being.

Both universal & context dependent.

About an open-ended process, not a state.

Comprehensive, covering all core issues of decision making.

Embedded in a world of complexity & surprise in which precautionary

approaches are necessary.

Challenging perception of Development Poverty, hunger, disease and debt have been familiar words

within the lexicon of development. Development is discussed in relation to ‘developing countries’,

but is a concept which relates to all parts of the world at every level, from the individual to global transformations .

Development is something to which we all aspire and certainly in the more developed world, ‘self-development’ has become something that is actively encouraged and an Endeavour on which large amounts of money are spent.

The origin of modern era of international development as a planned activity & of development studies as a subject is suggested to link back to a speech made by President Truman of US in 1949 when he employed the term ‘under developed areas’ & identified poverty as the threat to prosperity & peace for the world as a whole.

It was the time of post war recovery in Europe for which US Administration had provided financial assistance through Marshall Plan.

44 countries largely from industrialized world had also come together Bretton Woods conference in 1944 to form the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund & General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade.

These new International organizations were formulate to prevent the economic crisis & conflict that had characterized the previous period & ensure future economic stability, prosperity and a more peaceful world.

The stages of economic development as modeled by Rostow

Furthermore, the rise of globalization whereby countries & regions of world were seen to be becoming more widely & deeply interconnected and ever more global in character, were also changing the position of the nation state & national governments across economic, social and political spheres.

GDP per Capita

1971-80 1981-90 1991-2000

World 2.22 0.20 1.21

Industrialized countries

2.60 2.04 2.07

Developing countries

2.14 -0.17 1.04

Latin America 2.40 -0.83 1.26

Africa 1.04 -0.39 0.30

Asia 3.10 0.57 2.19

china 3.38 7.60 9.34

India 0.78 3.68 3.33

Economic growth rates in the world economy, 1971-2000

Environmental Justice

Environmental Justice movement focused on urban based injustices to people, pollution, hazardous waste & environmental dangers that were seen to be spatially concentrated in poors & minorities neighborhoods.

The movement challenged the major environmental organizations to expand their agendas into issues of community health & urban community development.

The principles of Environmental Justice

1. Opposes the destructive operations of multinational corporations.

2. Opposes military occupation, repression & exploitation of lands, people & cultures and other life forms

3. Protects the rights of victims of Environmental injustice to receive full compensation & reparation for damages as well as quality health care.

4. Affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity & the interdependence of all species, & the right to be free from ecological destruction.

5. Mandates the right to ethical, balanced & responsible uses of land & renewable resources in the interest of a sustainable planet for humans & other living things.

Conclusion

Critically, sustainable development was recognized as a global challenge: ultimately, the achievement of environment and development ends in any single location or for any group of people is connected in some way to what is happening elsewhere, for others.

By the end of the 1990s, the widespread suggestion was that the world itself was characterized by unprecedented rates and degrees of economic, political and social change and the understanding of sustainable