Inclusive green growth mediated sustainable development
Growth and developmentUndeniably 'growth' has been an essential part of development planning with the gross domestic product (GDP) as an indicator for economic progress in Asian countries. In India, for instance, growth and development have always been a part of the planning processes that have emphasised on equity and inclusive growth.
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen argued that economic processes involves not only quantitative changes but also qualitative transformations which are difficult to incorporate in traditional models of economic growth and development. According to a recent report by the World Wildlife Fund and the Asian Development Bank, for the Asia-Pacific region, biodiversity is on the decline for all types of ecosystems, including in forests, rivers and oceans, with the rate of species loss about twice the global average.
As Amartya Sen would have argued -- "growth-mediated" development supplemented through social protection policies have led to improved human well-being with trends such as increase in life expectancy, reduction in the undernourished population and the improvement in the number of people having access to basic health services and education. However, several neglected areas remain that challenge inclusive growth for sustainable development in Asia. For example, despite head-count decrease in poverty estimates, there has been no significant increase in human development indicators.
The multi-dimensional poverty index - which incorporates deprivation of health, education and living standards (including cooking fuel, electricity, water, sanitation, floor and assets) - indicates prevalent deprivation challenges in Asian countries. Access to energy, which is prerequisite for the attainment of Millennium Development Goal 7, still remains a challenge in Asia. According to the World Energy Outlook, over 1.9 billion people in developing Asia still rely on the traditional use of biomass for cooking, with around 840 million of these in India and more that 100 million each in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan.
Climate change epitomizes the developmental challenges in a globalized but still highly unequal world. While the need for economic growth and development are moral imperatives for emerging Asia - the key questions will then be around the nature of this growth and development.
Better scientific understanding of global drivers linked to the global commons including knowledge linked to climate change and biodiversity loss will help in defining new development models says Dr. R K Pachauri. Pachauri was speaking at a consultative workshop on an inclusive green economy organised by Gesellschaft fur Internationale (GIZ) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). According to Dr. Dirk Messner, who was also speaking at the GIZ-TERI conference emphasises that low carbon development transformation would the next great transformation after Neolithic Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.
Global policy prominence of new conceptsIn the multilateral fora, at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the concept of sustainable development and principles relating to equity and common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) were acknowledged for the first time at the global level. It may be said that the institutional architecture of global, regional and national governance has evolved since the 1992 Earth Summit especially with regard to the environmental pillar of sustainable development.
Concepts such as 'green growth' and 'green economy' have gained global policy prominence following the deliberations related to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) (also popularly known as Rio+20), in which green economy for sustainable development and poverty eradication (GESDPE) was one of the key themes along with institutional framework for sustainable development (IFSD). In the UNCSD Outcome Document, member states recognized that green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication would mean enhancing the ability to manage natural resources sustainably and with lower negative environmental impacts.
Of broader relevance, if sustainable development considers inter-generational and intra-generational equity and incorporates the three pillars of economy, environment and society, then green growth can be seen as one of the strategies to achieve the goal of sustainable development with an emphasis on green inclusiveness.
In context of India, as articulated by the Thirteenth Finance Commission, "green growth involves rethinking growth strategies with regard to their impact(s) on environmental sustainability and the environmental resources available to poor and vulnerable groups". Thus for India, green inclusiveness will remain attached concepts such as green growth and sustainable development.
In the G20 fora, green growth is seen to spur growth by moving resource allocation to various channels, by shifting demand towards green products and services, by fostering innovation, and by creating new markets. The assumption based on which inclusive green growth is seen as an attractive concept to countries is that planning processes in most countries are based on indicators of economic progress and societal benefits. Also countries are recognizing concepts such as 'low carbon' and 'green growth' in their policy and programmes.
In a globally integrated world, multilateralism and international cooperation are tantamount to achieve such objectives. Regional partnerships such as the East Asia Climate Partnership (EACP) designated five priority areas related to climate change - these include water resources management, waste management, low-carbon energy, low-carbon cities, and forestation & biomass. These sectors could constitute the basis of international cooperation for building capacities and capabilities at local, sub-national and national levels through green technologies, financing and bottom of the pyramid innovations.
Evolution and co-evolutionIn its submission as a Major Group to the UNCSD, the Third World Network observed that while there is some common understanding of Green Growth, its details and operationalization remain unclear to most governments. Analysts have also cautioned of singular approaches being reductionist and could result in avoiding of the really fundamental changes that are required to address global environmental issues like climate change. Hence, it is also important that green growth strategies recognises the complexities attached to development processes. Strategies around green growth would need to incorporate intra-generational equity as in Rio Declaration Principle 7 and intergenerational equity as in Rio Declaration Principle 3.
The ecological economics school of thought would argue that green growth would need to go beyond measures that internalize externalities. Approaches would also need to consider the incommensurability of entities such as biodiversity. Even India's National Environment Policy (NEP) of 2006 recognises conception of value incommensurability through the concept of Entities of Incomparable Value (EIV). EIV as in the NEP are entities such as natural landscapes and rare species and a conventional economic cost-benefit analysis would not apply in their case. Conservation of such entities would be prioritised without consideration of direct or immediate economic benefit.
While low carbon green growth -- with the optimism it portrays -- provides the development community with a unique opportunity to sweep away the short-term developmental thinking, the new concept needs to evolve so as to consider a plurality of viewpoints as expressed in various schools of thought and by various major groups. Such plurality will help in designing green growth strategies to deliver sustainable development in a manner that flourishes within ecological limits. Unlike the Emerald City in the Land of Oz, low carbon green economies would have to go beyond symbolising hope and optimism so that development models evolve and deliver in terms of action.