The Contradictions and Problems of Global Sustainable Development

Question for Discussion: What are the Problems
and Contradictions to realizing Global Sustainable
Development?

Readings: Lewis, "The Illusions of Sustainable
Development," "Sustainable Development: 10
Points to Clarify," "Rio Declaration of Sustainable
Development"

United Nations Division on Sustainable Development

United Nations Commission onf Sustainable Development

What is Agenda 21?

Agenda 21: 1992 Earth Summit Agreement:
Global Plan of Action on Sustainable Development

Earth Summit I: Rio de Janeiro (1992)

Earth Summit II: Johannesberg, South Africa

What have Governments done since
Earth Summit I in Rio?

People's Earth Declaration 1992

The Earth Charter 1992

The UN Millennium Development Declaration

The UN Human Development Report 2003

UN GEO: Global Environmental Outlook

Earth Trends: Environmental Information Portal

UN Division for Sustainable Development:
Sustainable Development Issues A-Z

UN CSD Framework Indictors for
Sustainable Development

International Institute for Sustainable
Development (IISD)

IISD Definition of Sustainable Development

IISD: Sustainable Development Principles

World Business Council for Sustainable
Development

Defining Sustainable Development: Essays
Exploring the Meaning of SD

Sustainable Development in a Neo-Liberal Frame

The Cornucopian Scam: Contradictions of
Sustainable Development

Harris: Basic Principles of Sustainable
Development

Whose Sustains Whose Development: Sustainable
Development and the Reinvention of Nature

Business Alliance for Local Living Economies

PRINCIPLES OF SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS

Korten: Sustainability and the Global Economy

Korten: Living Economies

Korten: The End of Empire and the Step
to Earth Community

What is Sustainable Development?

Sustainable development has been defined as "development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). Sustainable development is about the interface between human society and the environment.

"Rio Declaration of Sustainable Development"

What is Agenda 21?

Governments adopted Agenda 21, a 400-page compendium of some 2000 recommendations on a full range of environmental, economic, and social issues. Governments pledged to implement this "blueprint for sustainable development" - through national policies and processes.

Agenda 21: 1992 Earth Summit Agreement:
Global Plan of Action on Sustainable Development:
Humanity stands at a defining moment in history. We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being. However, integration of environment and development concerns and greater attention to them will lead to the fulfilment of basic needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer, more prosperous future. No nation can achieve this on its own; but together we can - in a global partnership for sustainable development.
(from the Preamble)

What have Governments done since
Earth Summit I in Rio?

Earth Summit I: Rio de Janeiro (1992)

Earth Summit II: Johannesberg, South Africa

United Nations Commission onf Sustainable Development

UN Division for Sustainable Development:
Sustainable Development Issues A-Z

IISD: Sustainable Development Principles

Defining Sustainable Development: Essays
Exploring the Meaning of SD

The Cornucopian Scam: Contradictions of
Sustainable Development

The larger contradiction of global economic development is that it isn't sustainable over a long period of time. Continued unsustainable global development is creating poverty, destroying the environment, and increasing inequality between the North and the South. First World Elites and developed experts came up with "sustainable development," implicitly recognizing that the current global development model wasn't sustainable. To the extent that sustainable development is just the continuation of business as usual, increasing global economic growth and development, it is a myth. Calling unsustainable global economic development "sustainable development" will not make that economic development sustainable. The problems then remains: How do we support continued economic growth and development without undermining the ability of future generations to have a clean environment, a high quality of life, and opportunities for advancement? (Chris Lewis)

(United Nations: Distribution of Income in the World )

Lewis, "The Illusions of Sustainable Development,"

Inside the Trojan horse of sustainable development is economic growth and global development, which is business as usual. But why talk about sustainable development if it is just business as usual? Because unsustainable development is threatening the future of both the Third and First Worlds. (Lewis, 21)

Recognizing the failure of development in the 1980s to solve the problems of Third World poverty, the global environmental crisis, and guarantee a prosperous future, First World elites began a discussion within the United Nations about how to sustain global development and economic growth. Not surprisingly, the miracle cure they discovered was sustainable development. (Lewis, 4)

It is in this context that First World economic and political elites declared that global sustainable development would create a new era of economic growth, corporate profits, and global prosperity. Without such growth, the increasing economic contradictions of the global economy--such as poverty, unemployment, pollution, environmental destruction, concentration of wealth, and loss of democratic control over nations and economies--threatened political and social unrest. (Lewis, 10)

Agenda 21 calls for managed global development, declaring that there is a "broad consensus that the current levels and rates of growth of consumption, production, and population are simply not sustainable."56 But if over 90 percent of population increase today occurs in underdeveloped countries, having risen from 1.7 billion in 1950 to 4.2 billion in 1991, how can Third World nations become developed without massive increases in economic production, depletion of natural resources, and consumption? 57 Rising living standards and affluence drive the global economy and development. Without substantial increases in consumption in both the First and Third Worlds, what will provide the economic incentive for national industries and transnational corporations to support sustainable development? (Lewis, 16)

The central contradiction at the heart of Agenda 21 is that while admitting that First World consumption cannot be duplicated in the Third World, it reaffirms the current global economic system that is based on consumption-driven economic growth. If First World affluence depends on the exploitation of Third World countries, what will happen if these countries insist on ending that exploitation in order to increase their standard of living and achieve sustainable development? The only solution to this redistributionist dilemma is, of course, more economic growth that will maintain the standard of living of the First World while at the same time increasing the standard of living of the Third World. But one of the basic premises of Agenda 21 is that current rates of economic growth and consumption aren't sustainable. (Lewis, 18)

Despite the breadth and scope of Agenda 21, participating governments insisted that it be non-binding and not create any powerful new UN agencies or institutions. Instead, UNCED created the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) "to promote and monitor the implementation of Agenda 21 in the various UN member states--the signatories of Agenda 21, as well as in the numerous UN agencies."68 Meeting only three weeks a year, with very little institutional financial support and authority, the CSD isn't even a credible paper tiger. One can only conclude from this that Agenda 21 is a panacea that no one should take seriously. This might explain why few politicians, business leaders, and UN officials are talking about implementing Agenda 21. (Lewis, 21)

Agenda 21 actually makes a case for de-industrialization, the collapse of the global economy, and the creation of local and regional polities, which could manage their own economies and resources and create sustainable development.l5 The only real way to ensure sustainable development based on national sovereignty and democratic participation is for peoples and local cultures to withdraw from the global economy and create local and regional economies which they can control and preserve, economies that will protect their environment, culture, people, and future. (Lewis, 24)

The First World's failure to modernize and civilize the world should not be seen as a tragedy, but as an opportunity. With the increasing recognition of the inability of development to resolve the economic and political contradictions it creates, whether you call it sustainable or not, peoples and communities will be once again forced to draw on their own cultures, histories, religions, and intimate knowledge of their local environments to improve their lives and ensure a "reasonable life" for their children. For most of our history, successfully adapting to changing local and regional environments was the fundamental challenge facing human societies. (Lewis, 27)

Our Common Future, Agenda 21, and the illusion of global sustainable development represent the refusal of First World elites to take the environmental and economic contradictions created by global development seriously. But even as modern peoples continue to refuse to adapt and accept change, the global patchwork quilt of cultures and peoples will choose alternative paths to the human future.91 We must rest our faith and hope in this insistence on facing local and regional economic, cultural, political, and environmental realities. As it always has in the past, the human future depends on our ability tochange and adapt, to not only survive but endure in a complex, dangerous, unpredictable world. (Lewis, 30)

"Sustainable Development: 10 Points to Clarify,"

(1) The environment and development crises are parts of the same phenomenon arising from global and national social, economic and cultural structures.There are tremendous inequalities of wealth and income, that lead to most of the world's resources flowing to a minority. Since their basic needs are already fulfilled, the minority spend their incomes on superfluous and luxury consumption, and indeed the system requires them to do so to avoid Keynesian recession. The poor have basic needs but too little resources to fulfil them. Thus much of the world's finite resources are being depleted or degraded to become inputs to the production of luxuries and in the process of production air, water and land are also polluted and contaminated.

(4) At the international level, it should be realized that the present crisis is generated by the unsustainable economic model in the North, inappropriate development patterns in the South, and an
inequitable global economic system that links the Northern and Southern models. There must be a change of development patterns in the South (towards models that are environmentally sound, make use of appropriate technology, and satisfy basic needs of all). But it is even more important and difficult to alter the parent economic model in the North, where 20% of worldpopulation consume 80% of world resources.

(United Nations: Distribution of Income in the World )

6) It is not the poor who have destroyed the environment, but the affluent. The poor are victims and not culprits of environmental degradation. Much of the depletion and contamination of resources have been done to meet the consumption demands of the affluent. Changing consumption habits of the affluent is thus the priority for curbing the rate of depletion or pollution of resources. Thus the relevant fact to examine is not '80% of the world's population live in the South and we must control its growth' but rather 80% of the world's resources ar used up by a small minority(who mainly live in the North) for non-essential consumption and we must reduce that s that resources can be conserved and also channeled towards fulfilling everyone's basic needs'.