Beyond Kyoto or, goodbye 'sustainable development'

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxx>]

[Esty has also called for sinking the WTO if doesn't meet certain
criteria]

< http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_SeptOct_2001/esty.html >
A Term's Limit
Many flocked to the banner of sustainable development, but it led them
nowhere.

By Daniel C. Esty


Sustainable development has been the rallying cry in the environmental
realm since 1992, when 100 presidents and prime ministers endorsed it
at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit. Nearly 10 years later, sustainable
development has largely failed as an organizing principle. The lack of
progress in confronting climate change, biodiversity loss, and other
pressing global environmental challenges is glaring, as is the lack of
improvement in the developing world's air and water quality. As
tempting as it may be to put the blame solely on a lack of
international will, the seeds of sustainable development's failure
were in fact sown at its inception.

In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development (known as
the Brundtland Commission) challenged the world community to fulfill
"the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs." Under the rubric of sustainable
development, the commission sought to accommodate the competing
desires of developed countries to combat worldwide environmental
threats and of developing countries to put poverty at the top of the
global agenda. It also hoped to shift environmentalists' focus away
from "limits to growth" arguments, which posited that economic growth
was incompatible with environmental progress.

The concept of sustainable development reframed thinking in three
fundamental ways. First, it made clear that poverty is a source of
terrible environmental degradation, and therefore there is an
inescapable connection between economics and the environment. Second,
it called for integrated thinking across disparate arenas, recognizing
that environmental outcomes are a function of policy choices in trade,
agriculture, transport, energy, and finance, as well as business
activities. Finally, sustainable development served as a reminder that
problems such as the buildup of greenhouse gases emerge over years or
even decades and therefore require a long-term view and careful
balancing of intergenerational equities.

Yet, for all its laudable goals and initial fanfare, sustainable
development has become a buzzword largely devoid of content. A recent
Internet search generated 570,000 hits on a term for which there is no
agreed definition. Focus groups and surveys show that the public has
no idea what it means. Worse yet, some officials, especially in the
developing world, have begun to argue that "sustainable" refers to the
continuity of economic growth without even acknowledging the term's
environmental dimension.

As a political compromise, the term papers over a deep North-South
divide and fails to answer critical questions, including how poor
countries can afford to address environmental concerns (some of which
entail trade-offs with economic goals) in parallel with their
development efforts. These divergent perspectives and gaps in
understanding mean that the concept provides little policy traction.
And the U.N. body set up at Rio to advance the environment-economics
linkage, the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), has proved
to be little more than a talk shop. Burdened with an impossible
mandate covering every imaginable environmental issue and goal, little
political support, no sense of priorities, and a Christmas tree
approach to agenda setting, the CSD has consumed enormous governmental
time and resources with almost nothing to show for it. In fact, one
long-time environmental observer recently suggested that the CSD
seemed designed to waste time and money and keep environmental
advocates off track.

Many businesses have begun to organize around the concept of
sustainability. This sister concept to sustainable development
provides companies with a starting point for integrated thinking and
for understanding the strategic elements of their environmental and
social behavior. But a "people, planet, profits" focus-to quote Shell
Oil's much-trumpeted phrase-often fails to translate into better
environmental results. Synergies across environmental and social
issues are limited, and pollution control and natural-resource
stewardship risk being swamped by an extensive list of pressing social
concerns: human rights, global poverty, and the training and treatment
of workers. Paired with the social agenda, the environment tends to
get short shrift.

Limiting emissions, minimizing waste, and wisely using resources
demand systematic attention, solid engineering, and environmental
training. The risk that a company will take its eye off the
environmental ball while playing the sustainable-development game is
more than theoretical. For example, ABB, an energy, automation, and
industrial firm that was once a leader in corporate environmentalism,
recently issued a sustainability report in which pollution issues are
buried deep in the text. And one cannot help but wonder whether
Shell's commitment to a tripartite "balanced scorecard" brings the
social dimension into the calculus as a way of diluting poor marks on
a narrower set of environmental criteria.

Ultimately, the sustainable-development edifice appears to be founded
in part on a mistake. In pushing to overcome policy fragmentation, the
concept's authors overstated their case. The Brundtland Commission
insisted that economic development and environmental protection were
"impossible to separate." In fact, fostering development and
protecting the environment are linked but separate imperatives.
Economics must inform environmental choices, and economic policies
must recognize that resource pressures and pollution burdens can
significantly offset the social welfare gains from growth. But
environmental and economic policy goals are distinct, and the actions
needed to achieve them are not the same. One measure of this reality
can be found in three jurisdictions-Mexico, Bolivia, and the German
state of Baden-Württemberg-that set up ministries of sustainable
development in the past decade. Two have abandoned them in favor of
more traditional structures with separate development and environment
agencies, and the third is considering such a move.

One can imagine a future where environmental consciousness in the
policy and corporate domains is so strong that no separate
environmental entities are required. But until that day arrives, the
world needs concrete pollution control and natural-resource management
initiatives-for starters, a better global environmental regime,
improved data and performance measurement and dissemination of
environmental best practices, and a beyond-Kyoto climate change
strategy. Yet as the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in
Johannesburg approaches, none of these appear to be in the offing. The
time for grand vision and flowery rhetoric has passed. The challenges
ahead require sharper focus, real commitment, and concrete action.