ERE2: Sustainability

• The origins of the problem– State of the environment– Growth and the environment– The environmental Kuznets curve

• Concepts of sustainability– Definitions, meanings,

conceptualisations

Last week

• Introduction into the discipline• The three themes: efficiency, optimality

and sustainability• Economy- environment

interdependence• The circular economy

The Quality of the Environment

• Pollution problems are not new to mankind

• Pollution control laws in Europe date back from the Middle Age

• What is new is the magnitude of the problem– Increasing size of population – Increasing per capita consumption of

environmental goods and services

Environmental Problems: Air

• Acidification: Fossil fuel burning and intensive agriculture release acidifying substances, that falls as acid rain

• Ozone layer: CFCs destroy the ozone layer, increasing UV radiation

• Climate change: Fossil fuel burning releases carbon dioxide, which changes climate

• Urban air quality: Traffic emits all sorts of substances that affect health, buildings and plants directly or indirectly

1980 1990 1995

China

GDP per capita 907 1783 3072

SO2 concentration 66 107 90

Particulate concentration 475 413 377

Per capita CO2 emissions 0.4 0.6 0.7

I ran

GDP per capita 5377 4843 5351

SO2 concentration 130 165 209

Particulate concentration 226 261 248

Per capita CO2 emissions 0.8 0.9 1.1

J apan

GDP per capita 15538 20794 22173

SO2 concentration 42 19 18

Particulate concentration 61 49

Per capita CO2 emissions 2.1 2.4 2.5

Environmental Problems: Water

• Eutrophication: Nitrates and phosphate released by agriculture and industry alter competition between species

• Toxic releases: Industry releases all sorts of toxic substances

• Endocrine disruptors: Pseudo-hormones have a wide-range of applications, alter the behaviour and physiology of animals

• Depletion: Some countries already have too little water, others are rapidly depleting fossil sources

• Contamination by pathogens: drinking water is not safe

GDP per capita (US$)

Population with safe water

(%)

Population with sanitation

(%)

Child mortality rate

(per 1000)

Burkina Faso 945 65 11 159 I ndia 1256 74 14 131 Ghana 1654 48 61 170 China 1901 74 87 43 Brazil 5534 88 73 69

Costa Rica 5758 92 96 16 Mexico 7773 83 67 39 Greece 11490 98 98 11 U.K. 17769 100 100 9 Denmark 20135 100 100 9

Environmental Problems: Land

• Soil erosion: Reduced vegetation cover makes that top soil gets washed away

• Desertification: Erosion, climate change, overexploitation gradually turns once fertile areas into deserts

• Salinisation: Overirrigation leads to the build up of salt in the soil

• Waste: Increasingly large areas are used for waste disposal

Environmental Problems: Nature

• Loss of nature: More land for living, industry, transport, agriculture and recreation implies less land for nature

• Loss of species: Destruction of habitat, overuse and other factors lead to local and global extinctions and loss of biodiversity

• Exotic invasions: Deliberate and unintentional transport of species imply new forms of competition between species

Resource Problems

• Depletion of resources: Human extraction of all sorts of minerals (copper, zinc) and fossil material (oil, water) exceeds their build up, implying that less and less of the stuff is left in the ground for future generations

• Waste: Human waste exceeds the assimilating capacity of nature, leading not only to accumulation but also to reduced assimilation

Population Growth

• More people, more food, more energy, more transport, more space, more everything

Projections 1995 2050Western Europe 447 479 (446-512)USA 297 356 (320-400)SSAfrica 558 1059 (965-1159)China 1362 1670 (1526-1826)South Asia 1240 1845 (1737-1949)

Economic Growth

• Incomes have been growing at rates of up to 10% a year, although the average lies somewhere between 1 and 2 per cent a year, doubling incomes every 35-70 years

• Higher income implies higher consumption, higher production, more resource extraction, and more waste

• Improved technology, less constrained, more aware, care more, status

Environmental Kuznets Curve

• Kuznets Curve: Inequality first increases, then decreases with economic growth

• Environmental Kuznets Curve: Environmental degradation first increases, then decreases with economic growth

• Holds for some, not for all pollutants• Local or global?• Even if true, no reason for complacency!

Sustainability

John Stuart Mill (1857)If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it ows to things that the unlimited increases of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a happier or better population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary long before necessity compels them to it.

Sustainability -2

Bruntland report (WCED, 1987)Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

Wonderful, but what does this mean?

Sustainability =

• Weak sustainability– Non-declining utility– Non-declining production opportunities– Non-declining yields of resource services

• Strong sustainability– Non-declining natural capital stocks– Ecosystem stability and resilience

• A social construct• All that, plus efficiency and equity

Non-declining utility

• Pezzey: utility should not fall• Hartwick: consumption should not fall• Solow: consumption should be constant• Whose utility, consumption?• What is utility, consumption?• What time scale?• Substitution is allowed

Ct

C(6)

CMIN

CSURV

C(1)

C(5)

C(4)

C(3)

C(2)

Consumption paths over time

Non-declining production opportunities

• Solow, Page

• Q = Q(L, KH, KN)

• No assumption about what is consumption, utility

• Production for whom?• What is production?• What time scale?• Substitution is allowed

Non-declining natural capital stocks

• Taken literally, this stops everything – no substitution is allowed

• In practice, some substitution and compensation must be allowed, but how much?

• Is spatial substitution allowed? Or, at what spatial scale?

• What stocks are maintained? Habitats, species, genes?

• What to do with viruses and pests?

Existing or optimal capital stock?

Kn

B, C

Kn*Ke

C (forgone development value)

B (total economic value)

Ke

Non-declining yields of resource services

• Back to an anthropocentric viewpoint, or not? Depends on services to whom? To Homo Sapiens or to other species as well?

• What are services?• What time scale?• What spatial scale?• Substitution is allowed, as long as the

service is generated

Ecosystem stability and resilience

• An ecocentric viewpoint, or is it? Is stability measured as stably serving human needs?

• What is stability, resilience?• What spatial and temporal scale?• Are ecosystems naturally stable?• Beyond a point, no substitution of man-

made stocks and activities for natural stocks and processes

A social construct

• Sustainability is, of course, defined as society would like to define it

• Focuses on process rather than outcomes or constraints

• Propose consensus building through negotiations

• There is no objective definition possible• Some argue that if only we get the

procedure of defining sustainability right ...