Even in countries where efforts to include environment in the national development planning document have been successful, associated environmental provisions such as EIA tend to be ignored by politicians, authorities and investors – not to mention donors. This is often because ‘higher level’ policies and associated incentives keep environment as an ‘externality’:
- Dominant development models are based on economic growth (and are considered inviolable) – and measured by inadequate indices such as GDP – rather than people's rights and welfare, or environmental processes and limits;
- Environmental benefits and costs are externalised;
- Poor people are marginalised, and inequities entrenched;
- Governance regimes are not designed to internalise environmental factors, to iron out social inequities, or to develop better economic models;
- Therefore unsustainable behaviour has not been substantially challenged.
There are three paradoxes here. First, the economic paradigm that has caused poverty and environmental problems to persist is the very thing that we are relying on to solve those problems. Second, this unsatisfactory state of affairs co-exists with a policy climate that espouses sustainable development. Third, change is being neglected just when it is most urgently needed: sustainable development remains at best a ‘virtual’ world, a planners’ dream. The growth-first paradigm remains firmly entrenched (Bass, 2007).
“India’s development process is on its way to incapacitate the environment. The country’s economic prosperity in terms of its GDP at the cost of environment is only making us tread on the path of unsustainability. Rapid economic growth and the resulting changes in consumption patterns are drastically changing the nature and scale of impact on the country’s environment and natural resources, thus testing the carrying capacity of the natural ecosystems, upon which much of the country’s economic growth depends”.
Development Alternatives, 2008
“Money drives decisions – capitalism and the environment are not compatible. Environment is viewed as an additional add-on and not as the foundation of our existence”
Sheila Berry, South Africa
For real progress, we need an imperative for change. Nick King of South Africa puts the case well (Box 5.3).
Box 5.3: The need for change
“It cannot be assumed here are a bunch of people out there who recognise the need for change and that what is missing are the tools for the change. Well, that may be true amongst the converted, but the converted tend not to include the relevant decision-makers. We need to go back a step in this process, i.e. that the fundamental issue here is that current development/economic/political/social structures of ‘western capitalism’ (as the current dominant paradigm), built up over 100s of years (and thus all the tools etc are designed to assist this system, not change/oppose it, because that has been what has been valued and rewarded) simply don’t allow for long-termism, strategic planning (in terms of new/sustainability model), sustainability etc.
Until and if the majority of measures (e.g. GDP) are changed to reflect this, and reward systems (e.g. World Bank loans not based on ‘good economic growth, but improved social and environmental performance!) decision-makers will not change. Once the measures are changed, it will be a simple matter to develop the needed tools – but developing the tools without the measures changed will not change anything.
And despite what we know about our current path, the measures are actually not just changing, but increasingly resisting the changes (witness the increasingly obscene payouts for top performing CEOs on only financial returns, not on social and environmental measures – i.e. the biggest drivers of unsustainability are the highest rewarded! It is much the same as with governments).
When change becomes apparent, those with the power who need to effect the changes, resist the changes because they have the most entrenched interests in the current system, precisely because their power comes from the current system! Dictators do not (voluntarily) give power to the people; otherwise they lose that power and all the privileges which go with it."
Source: Nick King, (quoted in DBSA, 2008) |
Environment-focused exercises that clarify the economic drawbacks of current growth models can help to provide clear cases for change. One such has been the Stern Report assessing the economics of climate change (Stern 2007). A newer addition has been the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) which has already indicated the cost of biodiversity losses to be equivalent to 6% of global GDP – a similar level to recent losses causes by financial systems collapsing, albeit far less reversible (TEEB, 2008).
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