SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE

THE GEOGRAPHY OF GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT –

LECTURE 16 BA1 AND BED 1

THE ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

Learning outcomes:

To get an appreciation of the key issues relating to the environment and development.

To gain an understanding of the concept of ‘sustainable development’.

To be able to critically review the role of global agencies in the market-environment relationship.

To understand solutions and futures.

QUESTION?WHAT DO YOU PERCEIVE TO BE THE MAIN ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS?

YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT

Find out your impact on the planet with WWF's Footprint Calculator.  Visit http://www.wwf.org.uk/calculator

THE DEBATE -THE BRUNDTLAND REPORT

The environment - long abused and disregarded - first entered the lexicon of development in 1987 when an independent commission, the World Commission on Environment and Development (led by Gro Harlem Brundtland) presented its landmark report, Our Common Future, to the United Nations General Assembly. The ‘Brundtland Report’ as it is now known, offered the first definition of sustainable development to the world by suggesting that: ‘Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’

THE QUESTION OF ‘SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT’

On November 18, 1992, some of the World's senior scientists from 70 countries, including 102 of the living scientists who are Nobel Laureates, signed and sent an urgent warning to government leaders of all nations as part of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the "Earth Summit") held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. According to this warning:

"A new ethic is required - a new responsibility for caring for ourselves and for the Earth. We must recognise the Earth's limited capacity to provide for us.... We must no longer allow it to be ravaged. This ethic must motivate a great movement, convincing reluctant leaders and reluctant governments and reluctant peoples themselves to effect the needed changes."

AN URGENT PROBLEM

It will be useful to recall Agenda 21 of the Rio 1992 Earth Summit. The first part of Section 5.3 of the document says:

"The growth of world population and production combined with unsustainable consumption patterns places increasingly severe stress on the `life supporting' capacities of our planet. These interactive processes affect the use of land, water, air, energy, and other resources."

The Greenhouse Effect: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/04/climate_change/html/greenhouse.stm

THE MARKET VERSUS ECOLOGYInternational Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organisation all insist on export-led economic growth which necessitates a greater investment of natural resources in commodity production in the agricultural sector.

Sustainable lifestyles based on the production of food crops have been abandoned to facilitate the cultivation of cash crops for export. This method makes greater and greater demands on the local environment and involves the intensive use of pesticides rather than natural and traditional farming methods.

Aggressive economic growth does not necessarily lead to sustainable development.

TNCS AND ‘GREENWASHING’Private corporations

often use the terminology of sustainable development to ‘greenwash’ their activities and pass themselves off as responsible corporations and ‘good citizens’ in relation to the environment.

The practice has been particularly notable in the oil industry, which is renowned for its pollution of the natural environment in the countries where it operates.

THE WEST’S CONSUMPTION

Isagani Serrano, vice- president of the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement, pointed out that: ‘The US, with only 4 per cent of the world’s population but consuming 44 percent of the world’s energy resources, has got a lot to cut down, give up, and share with the rest of the world.’

http://www.2a.com.tr/other/graph2.gif

THE EXAMPLE OF EMISSIONSFollowing years of

negotiation for poisonous emissions control, the US negated decades of progress by state and non-governmental organisations alike by deciding not to sign up to the Kyoto protocol which aimed to reduce emissions.

This decision was taken by the US’s Bush administration, which depended upon strong financial ties with the oil industry.

THE CONSEQUENCESTrade and economic issues tend to dominate government agendas with environmental policies developing in the unsympathetic context of a neo-liberal ethos.

However, mounting concern about erratic weather patterns, global warming, air pollution and ‘dirty’ industries should be reflected in urgent international action to recognise the causes of these effects. Petroleum Imports

BBC EDUCATION SLIDES ON CLIMATE CHANGE

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/04/climate_change/html/climate.stm

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE IMPACT

THE KYOTO PROTOCOL

It took one year for the member countries of the ‘Framework Convention on Climate Change’ to decide that the Convention had to be augmented by an agreement with stricter demands for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. The text of the Kyoto Protocol was adopted unanimously in 1997. It entered into force on 16 February 2005.

WHAT KYOTO MEANS

The Protocol's major feature is that it has mandatory targets on greenhouse-gas emissions for the world's leading economies which have accepted it. These targets range from -8 per cent to +10 per cent of the countries' individual 1990 emissions levels "with a view to reducing their overall emissions of such gases by at least 5 per cent below existing 1990 levels in the commitment period 2008 to 2012."

http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php

THE UNITED NATIONS 2007 GROUND BREAKING REPORT

‘Working Group II Contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - Climate Change 2007: Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’

Outlining the report's findings, Martin Parry, co-chairman of IPCC Working Group II, said evidence showed climate change was having a direct effect on animals, plants and water. "For the first time, we are no longer arm-waving with models; this is empirical data, we can actually measure it”.

THE IPCC FINDINGS

Key findings of the report include:

• 75-250 million people across Africa could face water shortages by 2020 • Crop yields could increase by 20% in East and Southeast Asia, but

decrease by up to 30% in Central and South Asia • Agriculture fed by rainfall could drop by 50% in some African countries

by 2020 • 20-30% of all plant and animal species at increased risk of extinction if

temperatures rise between 1.5-2.5C • Glaciers and snow cover expected to decline, reducing water availability

in countries supplied by melt water.

The report states that the observed increase in the global average temperature was "very likely" due to man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The scientific work reviewed by IPCC scientists includes more than 29,000 pieces of data on observed changes in physical and biological aspects of the natural world.

Eighty-nine per cent of these, it believes, are consistent with a warming world.

SOLUTIONSThe United Nations Environment Programme

http://www.unep.org/Themes/climatechange/

UN Factsheet on Climate Change

http://www.unep.org/Themes/climatechange/PDF/factsheets_English.pdf

COPENHAGEN 7-18TH DECEMBER 2009– ‘THE LAST CHANCE’

"A clean and healthy future depends on all of us. The EU and US, as theworld's leading industrial economies, have a duty of leadership to reduceour collective carbon emissions and kick start a new, more sustainableeconomic policy agenda for the future of our planet and our children'schildren."

www.alde.eu

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/01/q-and-a-copenhagen-summit

http://en.cop15.dk/

CLIMATE CHANGE

Video Shots on the effects of Climate Change

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8389547.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8390366.stm

WEBSITES

Earth Summit http://www.un.org/geninfo/bp/enviro.htmlStatistics for environment and development www.ids.ac.uk www.sustainable-development.gov.uk International Institute for Environment and Development

www.iied.org International Institute for Sustainable Development www.iisd.ca Greenpeace www.greenpeace.org Global Environment Facility http://www.gefweb.org/ BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/portal/climate_change/default.stm

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0509/sights_n_sounds/index.html

Copenhagen 2009 - http://en.cop15.dk/ http://www.erantis.com/events/denmark/copenhagen/climate-

conference-2009/index.htm