Sustainable Development

UNIT VI: TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE WORLD
Learning Objectives: After studying the unit, students should be able to:
● Examine the measures of the governments in addressing environmental crisis like

climate change
● Relate everyday encounters with the various environmental problems
● Analyze the effect of environmental problems that the world faces today
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Sustainable Development and Climate Change
By its meaning, sustainable development has been variously defined, but one of the
most quoted definitions of this term is from the Brundtland Report also known as Our
Common Future, which is a publication released by the World Commission on Environment
and Development in 1987, “sustainable development is development that meets the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs.” 207
As this term primarily relates to how the needs of the people basically through the
consumption and utilization of resources, sustainable development is often linked with
climate change which due to its hazardous effects in the environment is known to be a major
restriction in achieving sustainability.
This link between sustainable development and climate change is considered strong.
Poor developing countries particularly those developed countries tend to be the most
severely affected by climate change. Undoubtedly, climate change is often seen as a part of
the broader challenge in sustainable development thru a two-fold link: 208
1. Impacts of climate change can severely hamper development efforts in key sector
(e.g. increased threat of natural disasters and growing water stress will have to be
factored into plans for public health infrastructure)
2. Development choice will influence the capacity to mitigate and adapt to climate
change (e.g. policies for forest conservation and sustainable energy will improve
communities’ resilience reducing thereby the vulnerability of their sources of income
to climate change)
In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Member States express their
commitment to protect the planet from degradation and take urgent action on climate
change. The Agenda also identifies, in its paragraph 14, climate change as “one of the greatest
challenges of our time” and worries about “its adverse impacts undermine the ability of all
countries to achieve sustainable development. Increases in global temperature, sea level rise,
ocean acidification and other climate change impacts are seriously affecting coastal areas
and low-lying coastal countries, including many least developed countries and Small Island
Developing States. The survival of many societies, and of the biological support systems of
the planet, is at risk”. 209
Various efforts are underway to deal with climate. However, strong resistance on the
part of governments and corporations counters these. There are significant challenges
involved in implementing various measures such as “carbon tax” and ‘carbon neutrality” to
deal with environmental problems. 210 It is also difficult to find alternatives to fossil fuels.
For instance, the use of ethanol as an alternative to gasoline has an attendant set of problems
- it is less efficient and it has led to escalation in the price of corn, which currently serves as
major source of ethanol. Although biofuels themselves produce lower emissions, their
extraction and transport contribute significantly to total emissions. 211
The World’s Leading Environmental Problems
The Conserve Energy Future website 212 lists the following environmental
challenges that the world faces today:
1. Depredation caused by industrial and transportation toxins and plastic in the ground; the
defiling of the sea, rivers, and water beds by oil spills and acid rain; the dumping of urban
waste
2. Changes in global weather patterns (flash floods, extreme snowstorms, and the spread of
deserts) and the surge in ocean and land temperatures leading to a rise in sea levels (as the
polar ice caps melt because of the weather), plus the flooding of many lowland areas across
the world
3. Overpopulation
4. Exhaustion of the world’s natural non-renewable resources from oil reserves to minerals
to potable water
5. Waste disposal catastrophe due to excessive amount of waste (from plastic to food
packages to electronic waste) unloaded by communities in landfills as well as on the ocean;
and dumping of nuclear waste
6. Destruction of million-year-old ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity (destruction of the

coral reefs and massive deforestation) that have led to the extinction of particular species
and decline in the number of others
7. Reduction of oxygen and increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to
deforestation, resulting in the rise in ocean acidity by as much as 150 percent in the last 250
years
8. Depletion of ozone layer protecting the planet from the sun’s deadly ultraviolet rays due
to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere
9. Deadly acid rain as a result of fossil fuel combustion, toxic chemicals from erupting
volcanoes, and the massive rotting vegetables filling up garbage dumps or left on the streets
10. Water pollution arising from industrial and community waste residues seeping into
underground water tables, rivers and seas
11. Urban sprawls that continue to expand as a city turns into a megalopolis, destroying
farmlands, increasing traffic gridlock, and making smog cloud a permanent urban fixture
12. Pandemics and other threats to public health arising from wastes with drinking water,
polluted environment that become the breeding grounds for mosquitoes and disease
carrying rodents, and pollution
13. A radical alteration of food systems because of genetic modifications in food production
References:
Sustainable Development
207.Whatissustainabledevelopment?(n.d.).Retrievedfromhttps://www.iisd.org/about-
iisd/sustainable-
development
208.The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). A Background Paper under contract.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Division for Sustainable
Development, New Delhi,
April7.Retrievedfromhttps://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/1489mi
tigation_ paper.pdf
209. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics/climatechange
210.Armitage, K.C. (2005). State of denial:The United States and the politics of global
warming.
Globalizations. 2, (3).
211.Barrionuevo, A. (2007, January, 23). Springtime for ethanol. New York Times.
212.Conserve energy Future, “Environmental Problems,” Retrieved from
https://www.conserve- future.com/15-current-environment-problems.php (accessed last
July 29, 2020)

Sustainable Development

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Sustainable Development

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Sustainable Development

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

UNIT VI: TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE WORLD

● Examine the measures of the governments in addressing environmental crisis like

● Relate everyday encounters with the various environmental problems

Sustainable Development and Climate Change

The World’s Leading Environmental Problems

6. Destruction of million-year-old ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity (destruction of the

You might also like

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.