International Development and the Environment: Social Consensus and Cooperative Measures for Sustainability

This book analyzes the interplay between development and the environment, focusing on how to forge social consensus and practices in the international community. Since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, sustainable development has increasingly attracted the attention of the international community, and several international agreements have been concluded to combat issues such as climate change. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were introduced as common objectives, and the Paris Agreement was adopted as a subsequent outcome. In light of today’s globalized world, how to best achieve sustainable development—and prioritize climate change in particular—is an issue involving various perspectives on the environment and economic development in the global community.

The book provides students, businesspeople and government officials with a concept of sustainable development that is based on using social consensus, social norms, and practices (cooperative global actions) to achieve common goals. It is divided into three parts, the first of which focuses on the goals and development needed to achieve sustainable development. The second part explores measures to promote sustainable development, while the third highlights current climate change issues and aspects related to the effective implementation of international frameworks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Springer
• Release date: Jun 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9789811335945

Book preview

Part IIntegration of Development and the Environment

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

Shiro Hori, Yukari Takamura, Toshiyuki Fujita and Norichika Kanie (eds.)International Development and the EnvironmentSustainable Development Goals Serieshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3594-5_1

1. Development and the Environment: Society, Business, and Social Consensus

Shiro Hori¹  

(1)

Central Research Institute of Fukuoka University, Fukuoka, Japan

Shiro Hori

Email: [e-mail]

Abstract

The integration of development and environment is an old agenda, but a new one as well. The simultaneous achievement of development and environmental protection is closely related to human development. The fundamental elements are to sustain human development, energy, water, and clean air. Universal and clean energy access improves quality of life, water safety improves people’s health, and clean air reduces environmental damage. Concern about the climate is an unavoidable element in any discussion of sustainability for the future, and this requires new social rules. To achieve a sustainable society, the development of social and economic values is key—a development that is founded in social capital, cultivated through appropriate education, and sustained by community. In addition to the community, business sectors play an important role. Business sectors have attached importance to preventing pollution, conducting corporate social responsibility (CSR), and, more recently, implementing sustainable development. Through these efforts, business sectors contribute to sustainable development not only by themselves but also through an international framework. Throughout these activities, it has become more important for achieving sustainable development to establish social rules and build consensus, since the health of the natural environment is the most basic public good.

Keywords

Sustainable developmentSocial normsConsensus

1.1 Environment, Resources, and Sustainable Development

The deterioration of the natural environment and resources, exacerbated by the global environmental issue of climate change, is the first concern of sustainable development. Environmental conservation is essential to ensuring the quality of life (Fig. 1.1).

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Fig. 1.1

Three elements toward sustainable development

In 2011, a human development report stressed that sustainability and equality could be achieved most equitably and efficiently by acting to produce energy and conserve ecosystems at the global level. It seems that health, education, income growth, and gender equality are essential elements of these goals. Poor families that depend on natural resources spend much of their time obtaining energy and water. They cannot easily access modern cooking fuel or clean water. These families use women and girls instead of men and boys to collect water and sticks. Because of this time-consuming burden, women in many parts of the world lack opportunities for high-income jobs (UNDP 2011).

This section focuses on energy, water, and air, which are inevitable factors for achieving sustainable development.

1.1.1 Energy

Energy is essential to human development, modern medical care, jobs, transportation, education, and communication. Energy provides light, heat, cooking fuel, and electronic communications. For sustainable development, access to energy must be ensured for all people with controlled emissions of pollutants and transformed modern and clean energy sources (UNDP 2011). About 1.5 billion people in the world today, which is more than one in five humans, lack access to electricity, and 2.6 billion people cook their food using wood, straw, charcoal, or dung as their fuel, which causes serious pollution and health problems (REN21 2011).

Severe lack of energy is energy poverty, a condition in which people must collect wood and straw for cooking, heat, and light, which imposes significant burdens on children and women every day. Modern energy not only relieves them from that burden, but the light it produces means that they can study at night, refrigerate food, and consume information from television. Much evidence demonstrates that access to electricity improves the enrollment of children in school and the quality of life. Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore, said that Singapore’s citizens could become workers in high-tech industries because of the introduction of air-conditioning. Without that development, Singaporeans would be sleeping under palm trees (New York Times 2002).

Universal electricity service is an important governmental task. In the USA, the entire nation had electricity access by 1952. Despite its impressive record of development and that utility companies are obligated to provide universal electricity service, one-third of the world’s people living in poverty have no electricity. However, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that almost all countries will be providing universal electricity service by 2030 (IEA 2017).

Energy promotes economic development, which is demonstrated by many examples. Electricity consumption and gross domestic product (GDP) have a positive relationship (Fig. 1.2), and global electricity demand increases in correlation with economic growth. On the other hand, energy consumption with insufficient mechanisms for pollutants’ emissions causes serious air pollution, acid rain, and contributes to climate change. Similarly, because fossil fuels are limited resources, sustainable and clean energy sources are the inevitable pathways toward sustainable development.

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Fig. 1.2

Electricity and economic development.

Source IEA (2009), World Bank (2011)

Clean and modern energy sources provide health benefits by preventing in-house pollution caused by biomass fuel consumption. People around the world rely on biomass, coal, and/or kerosene to cook, and that usage is declining quite slowly. About 2.8 billion people in 2015 used biomass energy sources, which is expected to decline to about 2.3 billion people in 2030 (IEA 2017). The IEA also reported that lessening the amount of solid biomass as cooking fuel reduces PM2.5 emissions by about 15%, which contributes to about one-half million people in developing countries who are expected to die from household air pollution by 2040 (IEA 2017). Clean energy sources not only help to prevent air pollution; they increase energy security and improve productivity.

1.1.2 Water

Sustainable clean water supplies help to ensure a high quality of life. Water is the core of human interdependencies. It is a core resource for agriculture, manufacturing industries, household survival, and the natural environment (UNDP 2006). Without water, there is no life. Although management of clean water and sanitation are essential for healthy lifestyles, many people drink unclean water from polluted rivers or wells. This water causes diarrhea among children. The proportion of deaths of those aged five years or younger is about 20% of all the deaths in the world; however, that share is less than 1% in developed countries. Diarrhea is the second most common cause of disease and death during childhood after acute respiratory tract infection (WHO 2005). Clean water helps to prevent diarrhea and malnutrition, and it helps to achieve nutritional eating. Furthermore, because clean water improves the quality of life, it promotes opportunities for educational success and employment.

Currently, people in many developing countries have less water than people in developed countries. For example, in some countries where water consumption is low, such as Benin and Congo, people use less than 20 L per day compared to the per capita usage in the USA of 1543 L per day (FAO 2017) (Table 1.1). The problem is worse in some vulnerable areas that have dry seasons or periodic droughts. One of the most important causes of water vulnerability in rural communities is their seasonal fluctuation in food and water availability (World Bank 2000a, b).

Table 1.1

Water and development

Source FAO (2017)

It is necessary to establish water resources, water transportation, and distribution facilities to ensure clean water supplies. In area where the water supply facilities are insufficient, community-based simple portable water cleaners might be useful alternatives. For these facilities, community-based management and consensus are keys to achieving the appropriate use of the equipment.

Water contributes to economic development, particularly agriculture, which is a necessary component of economic growth along with population growth. High-yield cultivars have had important roles in increasing yields per plot. However, high-yield cultivars need more water.

Mismanagement of international water basins threatens human security in some very direct ways. Shrinking lakes and drying rivers influence individual and household livelihoods by affecting agricultural and fishery production. Unpredictable disruptions in water flows can exacerbate the effects of droughts and floods. Some of the world’s most obvious environmental disasters testify to the human development costs of not participating in transboundary water management (UNDP 2006).

The water problem also can be caused by excessive water consumption, which is another sustainable development issue. Appropriate water management and water conservation are at the top of the agenda. Water is a typical common resource, so managing water usage is a major challenge in terms of the need for consensus in the international community. Water management is a community problem, a national-level issue, and a relevant concern for the international community.

1.1.3 Clean Air

Clean air is another necessity of life. Polluted air harms people’s health with respiratory diseases, and it damages transboundary ecosystems. In the 1950s, acid rain was created by sulfur oxide emissions mainly produced in Germany. It fell over wide swaths of Europe, where it damaged forests and lakes. This problem led European countries to a consensus on establishing regional agreements at the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution to regulate the offending emissions.

Air pollution was estimated to create 4.2 million premature death in 2016 by exposure to PM2.5 (WHO 2018). In Beijing, the PM2.5 concentration recorded 700 μg/m³, in 2013, which is 10 times higher than China’s environmental standard. China’s air pollution is most serious during the winter, and the pollution spreads to East Asia by westerly winds. Consequently, air pollution is a transboundary problem. Acid rain spreads across the European countries, and wind spreads PM throughout East Asia. International cooperation and agreements are necessary to tackle this problem. Airflow depends on wind, and scientific evidence is crucial to developing effective countermeasures.

1.1.4 Climate Change

Climate change is an issue related to the air system; however, the consensus is more challenging regarding climate change than it is regarding other issues. Climate change will cause major disasters in vulnerable countries along with increasing land and water temperatures. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report stated that direct damages include temperature increases; extraordinary temperature fluctuations; droughts, floods, and heavy rains; changes in rainfall, snow, and ice; sea-level rise; and oceanic acidification. Developing countries might be threatened by droughts, floods, and typhoons that cause extensive and expensive property, industrial, and transportation infrastructure damages.

Climate change is caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, particularly CO2, which has increased because of artificial emitters. In 1997, developed countries emitted about 59% of the CO2 in the world; however, in 2013, developed countries’ share had decreased to 40%, and China joined the USA as the biggest emitters (Fig. 1.3). Thus, the global community began debating an effective framework, to which they agreed in 2015, known as the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

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Fig. 1.3

Energy-related CO2 emissions.

Source IEA (2015), all right reserved

The CO2 that is fueling climate change is produced by various economic activities: 21% by industries, electricity and heat generation produce 25%, agriculture and forestry contribute 24%, transportation adds 14%, and 16% is due to other sources. Thus, one feature of climate change is that it is different from historical air and water pollution, whereas climate change is caused by accumulated pollution. Therefore, current abatement efforts do not directly yield visible improvements. Current abatements are expected to have future benefits because it takes about 100–300 years to stabilize GHG concentration levels, several hundred years to stabilize temperatures, and several hundreds to thousands of years for sea levels to stabilize (IPCC 2001). Those of us alive today will not experience the effects of our abatement efforts, but we are responsible for future generations. That value requires a new social norm.

1.1.5 Role of Social Assets

The assets that are important to sustainable development are environmental assets, such as water, air, forests, and so on. However, social assets, such as trust, commons, and voluntary participation in communities, also are important to consider (World Bank 2003). The value of social assets is emphasized because current environmental problems cannot be solved by a few privileged actors, and many stakeholders’ contributions are needed. The presence of social assets influences the development of cooperation. The World Development Report 2003 stated that social assets promote the accumulation, preservation, and productivity of environmental and human assets. Social assets can improve the management and productivity of watersheds to generate agricultural production (World Bank 2003). Thus, social assets have a key function in promoting the value of environment assets.

Simon Kuznets demonstrated that historical pollutants (such as sulfur oxide and smoke) related to economic development could be illustrated as an inverted U-shaped curve, which became the famous Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). According to the curve, environmental problems worsen as an economy grows, but, at a certain point in that economic development, the environmental problems stop worsening and begin to improve in response to the application of progressively environmentally friendly technologies and enforcement of environmental regulations. However, the quantity of waste and the GHG emissions monotonically increase throughout the period of economic growth or, if a turning point occurs, that point is at a high growth level. That difference is because waste and GHG environmental problems are caused by numerous polluters/pollutants, some of which are difficult to regulate. Consequently, abatement measures heavily depend on stakeholders’ voluntary efforts. Obtaining the cooperation of all the relevant stakeholders is achieved by establishing trust and social norms. Consensus could create new types of rules or norms based on social assets, and the next section examines the key actors needed to realize consensus and common rules.

1.2 Society and Sustainable Development

Many communities have traditional ways to sustainably use their natural resources. For example, in Japan, satoyama (border zones or areas between mountain foothills and arable flat land) have been used according to community rules. Satoyama is owned and managed by the community, and the community members have the right to use the forest products. Similar systems are observed in other societies. For example, in Indonesia, the Sasi system is a popular way to traditionally manage natural resources sustainably. In the Pacific Islands, communities manage their fishing resources, and because of their management system, they greatly benefit from maintaining their sustainable resources (UNDP 2005).

These group rules can be established based on trust among the people. When they are unwritten and informal, they are social norms maintained through mutual trust. Interpersonal networks, shared values, and trust characterize the social capital of these communities and form the foundation of social norms. When social capital is easily realized, voluntary cooperation among members is easily realized (Putnam 1993). The social capital proposed by Putnam has become a widely popular concept for understanding and promoting development.

Social capital strengthens the cohesion of communities and promotes personal satisfaction. Social capital develops in cultures with respected rules. Indigenous Mexicans, despite their deep poverty, seem to be happier than other poor people because their traditional communities support the people (Mexico 1995). This observation suggests that social capital might increase happiness. Narayan (2000) summarized the function of social capital as follows: At the community level, cohesion is an asset that provides security, regulates behavior, and improves the standard of living of the community as a whole in matters that include but are not limited to material wealth. Putnam (1993) pointed out that social cohesion and civic engagement are practical preconditions for improved schools, safe streets, rapid economic growth, effective government, and public health. Social capital also increases opportunities