Global change and sustainability

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON DEVELOPMENT

• Amartya Sen, he argued that development as freedom/capacity to choose what is valued as important (capability approach), Equity, democracy, human and civil rights, "continuing enhancement of people's ability to do what they have good reason to value" (NB: in the conventional perspective, first comes economic growth and then human and civil rights will follow; in Sen's perspective, human and civil rights must take the first place in the agenda (this is development), and then economic growth will follow)

Rostow model an approach to the process of modernization, it is a stage based model where you have several stage, the last one is called the maturity stagewhen societies entered a phase of affluence when they were very reach and developed a lot of services, material goods, etc. When you arrive to this stage you usually start to think on what we called post material values this means that when you achieved your personal

goals like building an home, get a well payed job, you start thinking about the quality of living, the environment, the post material values and other elements. These values call for a collective action, the quality of the environment depends on the institutional capacity but what is important that when we approach those models we start to think about human rights, equality issues, capacity to decide our life etc. Sen makes the opposite that is: he argues that first we have to think about spiritual values, education, gender issues because it is development and only if you are able to guarantee those post materialistic values you can start to increase from the economic growth. In these models there is first economic growth and then development from the qualitative point of view. In Sen's approach only if you have development from the qualitative point of view (that means gender issues, education, quality of environment etc) you can continue to raise the stand of the economic growth process, this is a

Very important aspect to consider when we talk about sustainable development:

• I. Sachs, he wrote “The post development dictionary” that is a critical book on the concept of development and he denies that the trade-offs between environmental protection and equity/democracy cannot be accepted,«concern for the environment should not become a diversion from the paramount imperatives of social justice and full democracy, the two basic values of whole development»

When we talk about climate change, there is the risk that in order to promote policy able to oppose climate change you can put not in the very first point of the agenda issues such as democracy, human rights. While in the perspective of SD these elements have to combine one to another. This aspect raised the question if: in order to oppose climate change is more effective democracy or authoritative system of government? In the next decades in order to oppose climate change we will abandon some of the freedoms.

that we have had so far.

• A. Parr, concern for SD and sustainability to become concepts transformed by the largest TNCs as "mask over essentially Business As Usual practices"

Definitions of sustainability

1. Sustainable Development (SD) - "meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Brundtland Commission, 1987): very general definition that concerns mainly the principle of equity between different generations
2. Sustainability - "the possibility that human and other forms of life on earth will flourish forever" (John Ehrenfeld, Professor Emeritus, MIT): much more concerned with a sort of biological and ecological perspective on what SD is. It mainly concerns the ecosystem services on biodiversity.
3. Sustainable Development - "Enough- for all- forever" (African delegate to Johannesburg, Rio+10): perspective concerned on the problem of SD in the poorest countries.

The attention is based on the concept of “enough” that means that we should not take economic growth as the mainstream goal in our political systems. There’s the emphasis on the concept of equity (for all) and on the idea of a long-time perspective (forever) on development. It is clear the importance that is payed to the concept of equity and a long-term development by the African delegate to the conference in Johannesburg in 2002.

SD is therefore multidimensional, encompassing social, ecological and economic goods and perspectives it is not surprising that SD is a multidimensional concept that encompasses social, ecological and economic purposes and goals.

This means that the concept of SD has been considered very often “as vague, self-contradictory and incoherent, and uncapable of being translated into practice” (see pag. 37) The main implication of this multidimensionality on the concept of SD is that the concept itself can be considered very vague.

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self-contradictory and incoherent and moreover very difficult to be translated into practice.The 3 pillars of SD 3 main dimensions that should be taken into account in orderto define what Sustainable Development is1- Economy: Growth and Efficiency itmeans that SD programs and policiesshould aim to realize economic growth andefficiency.- Science and technologicalinnovation- “decoupling” (to get the same withless resources; to get more with thesame resources; to reducewastes) When we talk about to efficiency we mainly refer to the concept ofdecoupling that means get the same (in terms of output or product) with lessresources or to get more (more output or more goods and services) with thesame input and the same resources or to have less pollution and less wastes.- Circular economy: it implies to reduce resources consumption and wastes (“toimitate how nature works”) A basic concept when we deal with the problem ofefficiency is the one of circular economy.

2- Society SD should focus on certain concepts such as:

• Social inclusion
• Equity
• Participation of people (NGOs, stakeholders, citizens)
• Values to make values explicit when addressing the problem of what SD is
• Attention on the local dimension
• To respect diversity

3- Ecosystems it means to respect and protect biodiversity at a global, international, national, regional and local scale to preserve ecosystem services

• Biodiversity
• To preserve ecosystems services that is the capacity of ecosystems to sustain the different uses of land, water and forests

4th pillar? Sustainable governance? Integration, building capacity, etc.

There are some authors that focus on a 4 dimension of sustainable development that is the sustainable governance it means to promote integration between different policies so for example economic, social,

"Industrial ecology (Ie) is a broad, holistic framework for guiding the transformation of the industrial system to a sustainable basis. This will be a profound shift from a linear model (mine pit to producer to consumer to dump) to a closed-loop model closely resembling the cyclical flows of ecosystems."