Climate change, ecology and sustainable development: is it too late?
It has been estimated that 750000 Chinese die early every year because of filthy air and filthy
water, and 20 million fall ill
Ecological degradation is not new: it has happened regularly throughout human history
o Iraq
o Attica
o the Mayans
o Rome
o Easter Island as a paradigmatic case
Indeed, there have been mass extinctions before and, at one point, 97% of life on the planet
was wiped out by climate change
So: what is new?
o the rate and scale of ecological degradation and climate change is without parallel
o there is an unprecedented public awareness of the issue
o let's start with some evidence
The result is unambiguous: climate change cannot be denied
Why then do people deny it is happening?
1. incompetent scholarship
2. biased research by people paid by energy industries
o being encouraged to drive our cars and use our air conditioners
3. more fundamentally: a basic confusion between weather and climate
o weather: a variable, local and immediate phenomenon
“immediate”: this is why we want the weather forecast
o climate: the regular range of highs and lows of temperatures and precipitation in a
region
if the latter changes consistently, we have climate change
4. most importantly: a lack of general agreement about the character of humanity's
relationship with nature
a. is nature capricious, driving global changes – a fatalist viewpoint?
b. is nature robust, capable of withstanding human action – an entrepreneurial
expansionist viewpoint?
c. is nature robust, but within limits – a hierarchist viewpoint you can do a lot to the planet, but there is a limit
d. is nature inherently fragile – a communard viewpoint?
These 4 perspectives as to whether nature is fragile or robust produce conflicting perspectives
o about the scale of ecological degradation
o about the scope of ecological degradation
o about how to develop coherent policies for the environment
o about how to govern ecological policy-making
Meyer and Turner (1995) argue that these 4 perspectives are largely impossible to verify or
refute – and so they describe them as myths
These 4 myths give rise to different views as to why ecological degradation and climate change
is happening
1. a problem of population?
are there too many people for carrying capacity?
2. a problem of poverty?
does a lack of wealth and resources make it harder to invest in environmental
protection?
3. a problem of growth and overconsumptiion?
global consumer society and the world system of accumulation is bad for the
environment and fails to recognize that the economy is a (smaller) part of the
(larger) environment
This is what we mean by “progress” and modernity – overcoming scarcity
4. a problem of the domination of nature?
overcoming scarcity through the domination of nature by human beings lies at
the core of the idea of modernity, progress and development
There are elements of truth in all of these
They also give rise to different views as to what can be done about ecological degradation and
climate change
1. there are those that deny there is a problem
• it is part of the planet’s natural cycle, and renewal is part of the cycle
2. there are those that believe there is a problem, and the market can solve it
• excessive government intervention gets in the way of markets solving the
problem
3. there are those that believe in a technological solution
• human ingenuity can overcome any obstacle
4. there are those that believe that environmental degradation requires a fundamental
reordering of societies and economies
• structural transformation of societies and economies are a precondition of
achieving sustainability Efforts to try and globally manage climate change is organized by the United Nations using
Conferences of the Parties (COP) through the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), for which a key input are the reports of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC)
The UNFCCC focuses on 2 problems:
o how to prepare for and survive climate change – adaptation – the concern of
developing countries
o how to reduce emissions generating climate change – mitigation – the concern of
developed countries
There are thus very different concerns
* How to sort through the complexity? By understanding that from the 4 'myths' emerge 6 approaches
to global ecological management:
1. The scarcity crisis
In 1972 the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth argued that current levels of consumption were
unsustainable and had to be cut
The development implications were stark:
o poorer countries needed to increase consumption – this suggested they should not
o poorer countries believed measures to regulate the environment would be based on
trade barriers
So the 1972 UN Stockholm conference on the environment established that environmental
management required liberal markets
o Liberal markets were pushed by poorer countries to overcome the prescriptions of the
rich countries?
Environmental management thus became embedded in liberal development policies and
practices
'Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it
two key concepts:
o The concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which
overriding priority should be given; and
o the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on
the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.’
Our Common Future (1987): 42 [the Brundtland Report]
Critical objectives for liberal environmental management and development politics that
followed from the concept of sustainable development included:
o reviving growth
growth is a key component of environmental management
o changing the quality of growth
o meeting essential needs for jobs, food, energy, water, and sanitation objectives that had to be in tune with what was best for the environment
o ensuring a sustainable level of population
o conserving and enhancing the resource base
so growth isn’t based on being a predator on the environment
o reorienting technology and managing risk
managing risk from humanity’s encounters with nature
o merging the environment and economics in decision making
taking the environmental aspects under account when thinking of economic
policy around development
However, the idea of sustainable development is extremely contested:
1. what are the needs
of the present?
of the future?
2. whose needs are being sustained?
3. what is being sustained?
nature?
the economy?
people?
The concept means fundamentally different things to different people
Nonetheless, by framing the early debate in the language of scarcity, which is a concept of
market economics, the solution to environmental problems had to respond to the logic of the
market
So developing countries supported liberal, market-based environmentalism – and continued to
do so at Rio in 1992:
o 'States should cooperate to promote a supportive and open international economic
system that would lead to growth and sustainable development...to better address the
problems of environmental degradation'
2. Liberal market economics
If overconsumption produces scarcity, prices will rise
The market will therefore foster conservation if it is allowed to operate
Therefore, states should not regulate human interactions with the environment – benign
neglect?
o If the market isn’t doing anything for the environment – why isn’t it?
3. Environmental economics
1. Private companies do not have to take account of the environmental impact of their actions
because environmental resources are free
2. Therefore, create a price for corporations and individual users environmental resources and
force companies to 'internalize' the costs of environmental degradation
o a carbon tax (British Columbia)
o a cap and trade system (Kyoto) 3. Both are market-based solutions to environmental problems
A key mechanism of cap and trade: develop emissions trading
1. The idea: unless someone owns the environment, polluting is costless
2. Therefore, set limits on what people and firms are allowed to pollute
3. Allow trading of people’s and firms pollution allowance
4. This will force people and firms to economize on pollution
5. The problem: ‘this market is designed to produce cheap credits for corporations trying to avoid
regulations’ – Adam Ma’anit, Carbon Trade Watch
Cap and trade systems have 3 market mechanisms
1. emissions trading amongst developed countries
2. emissions reductions financed by FDI are credited to the source country
3. a 'clean development mechanism' (CDM) to finance FDI into developing countries that
generates emissions credits in developed countries
The CDM
Wealthy countries offset their emissions by paying poor countries to pollute less
o A German power company builds a wind farm in China – reducing their pollution – and
gets a credit towards the amount they can pollute
First CDM project: 2004
More than 3500 around the world – planned investments equalling more than $140 billion
o China accounts for half of all credits
The bank has financed investment in China
o Some projects destroyed HFC-23
The cost is 17 eurocents to destroy it
You get a 12 euro credit for destroying this
The idea? Produce this so you can destroy it
But cap and trade has not worked
1. it is voluntary
2. standards for qualifying projects are arbitrary
3. there is no effective evaluation methodology to assess success
4. emissions offsets can encourage consumption, i.e. air travel offsets
Pay more to fly so you can offset the carbon – will that discourage flying? No.
It’s going to encourage it because you feel better about it.
5. it is a fragmented, not global, approach
The result: 'rise in atmospheric CO accelerates as economy grows' – Stanford University, 2007
2
4. Ecological economics: technological fixes
Critiques environmental economics as a set of accounting practices
The laws of thermodynamics suggests a biophysical limit to the human transformation of the
ecosystem Released energy cannot be recovered, and wastes cannot be absorbed
o Every bit of plastic that has ever been made is still around – it can’t be absorbed
The result will be an economic and social crisis that can only be prevented by...
5. Ecological modernization: create technology & transfer to poor country
Companies will innovate, creating green technologies for profit that solve the problems of
ecological degradation
So global environmental management is about establishing economic and environmental
institutions that can promote emerging green technologies
In other words: build the green market and companies will solve the problem themselves
The implications for development are that emerging green technologies must be transferred to
developing countries
o via aid (1970s and 1980s)
o via FDI (1990s and 2000s)
However, the capacity of developing countries to absorb emerging green technologies is open to
question – TNCs benefit from emissions trading schemes and green technology subsidies
The ecological modernization perspective remains within the prevailing liberal orthodoxy, which
still follows the Brundtland/Our Common Future definition, focusing on making economic
growth compatible with environmental protection
Thus, the main sources of environmental problems are:
o a lack of wealth: a lack of financial resources results in less expenditure on the
environment and a vicious circle between poverty and environmental degradation
o market distortions: subsidies on resource consumption or industrialization can cause
environmental problems
There are two strategies to deal with these problems:
1. promote economic growth/poverty reduction (they are synonymous?) in all countries
o economic globalization is seen to be best way to promote growth
o economic growth is seen to be best w
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