In 1983 the UN established the World Commission on Environment and Development (UNCED), which published ‘Our Common Future’ (The Brundtland Report) in 1987. The findings of the commission were not surprising. They concluded that if we continue to use up natural resources as we do at present, if we ignore the plight of the poor, if we continue to pollute and waste, then we can expect a decline in the quality of life. To describe the way of halting this decline the commission coined the term ‘sustainable development.’
From 1989, the UN started to plan a Conference on Environment and Human Development which was to include governments and many NGOs including; business, education, women’s groups, indigenous groups and others. The outcome was the Earth Summit which was held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. This was a victory for the small group of campaigners who set out at Stockholm and a step forward from previous meetings as it concerned not solely our ecosystem, but life itself. As the first meeting of world leaders since the end of the Cold War, Rio represented the beginning of a new age.
Sustainable Development
Sustainability and sustainable development have become the buzzwords of the nineties. One of the problems with the concept of sustainable development is the lack of an agreed definition, or, at least, a lack of agreement on the implications of that definition. It was famously defined in the Bruntland Report as:
‘…development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’
(WCED, 1987: 43)
The same report, however also called for ‘a new era of economic growth – growth that is forceful and at the same time socially and environmentally sustainable. Paul Elkins (1992) points out the problem with this statement in his argument that:
‘…no-where in the Bruntland Report is there a clear statement of how sustainable economic growth can be recognised and distinguished from the patently unsustainable variety which is all the industrial world has so far known.’
(Elkins, 1992)
Pinkney-Baird (1993) proposes that Agenda 21 answers this criticism to a certain extent by:
‘…calling for the development of new concepts of growth and wealth to allow higher standards of living through changed lifestyles which are less dependent on finite resources, and for appropriate changes to systems of national accounting.’
(Pinkney-Baird, 1993: 4)
Agenda 21 is a complex document which took 2 years to develop and produce. It was meant to; set global goals on the issues involved in Environment and Development; define the direction which actions would take; determine priorities and evaluate progress by means of targets and goals. Eckerberg & Lafferty (1998) clearly explain how the implementation of the UNCED Program for change, is best understood as a potential transition across four stages of environment and development policy.
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Pre-environmental policy: ‘Business as usual’, with no active attempts to ameliorate the negative environment-development consequences of industrialism and open-ended materialism;
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Environmental policy: With an emphasis on the conservation of nature and technological ‘end-of-pipe’ solutions to environmental damage;
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Sustainable-development policy: With direct or implied reference to the Brundtland Report and a greater emphasis on both the underlying socio-economic causes of environmental damage and the interdependence between environmental and development in a North-South perspective;
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UNCED policy: With direct reference to the values and goals of the Rio Documents.
(Eckerberg & Lafferty 1998: 238)
What soon became clear is that issues surrounding the idea of sustainable development are complex and challenging. Not only does sustainable development depend on the restructuring of the global economy but also major shifts in human reproductive behaviour, and dramatic changes in values and life-styles. For wealthy nations, sustainable development means policies concerning issues such as recycling, energy efficiency, conservation, and rehabilitation of damaged landscapes. In contrast, for the poor nations, it means policies for equity, fairness, respect of the law, redistribution of wealth and wealth creation. In reality then, Agenda 21 not only addressed the problems of today but also hoped to prepare the world for the challenges in the future.
What is needed for this ‘sustainable development’ to succeed has been likened to an environmental revolution. Brown (1992) describes this revolution as:
‘…one defined by the need to restore and preserve the Earth’s environmental systems. If this environmental Revolution succeeds, it will rank with the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions as one of the great economic and social transformations in human history.’
(Brown, 1992: 18)
For this to become reality, the successful implementation of Agenda 21 is primarily the responsibility of Governments. National strategies, plans, policies, and processes are crucial to achieving this. In turn financial resources are also essential to accelerate sustainable development in the third world. Nonetheless, the public cannot sit back and expect the situation to be solved from the top end, as unless responses to policy are acted on, and changes to lifestyle implemented, results will never be seen.
Genuinely New Ideas?
Even though it is clear that the framework of the Brundtland Report greatly influenced the UNCED, there are clear differences between the two, marking the beginning of genuinely new ideas concerning development. For Brundtland it was essential to base itself on the needs of the people, while UNCED dealt first in global ecological matters. This represents the shift from market environmentalism to ecological modernisation which only became dominant from the mid-1980s following on from the Brundtland Report and leading up to Rio’s Agenda 21.
Ecological modernisation can be said to have transformed perceptions of environmental problems. This first became apparent in what Hajer (1995) calls ‘secondary policy making institutes’ such as the UNEP, UN Commission on Environment and Development and the OECD. Hajer argues that the Earth Summit played a role of great symbolic importance.
‘…the global conference was meant to be the culmination of the integrative effort and was to mark the start of a new ecological era for which Agenda 21 was to point the way.’
(Hajer, 1995: 1)
It seems that there are two viewpoints when it comes to Rio representing genuinely new ideas concerning development, Agenda 21 has certainly added more conviction to environmental discourse than had previously existed. Nevertheless, commentators have argued that the UNCED was not a conference about the environment at all, but that it concerned the world’s economy and how the environment affects it.
Furthermore, many have highlighted that, if anything, the conference has uncovered many conceptual holes and political ambivalences that had become hidden, in order to arrive at some sort of sustainable development.
Criticisms Post-UNCED
Post-Rio, one cannot fail to see the crisis in development theory and development politics. Unmussig (1993) points out that:
‘…a consistent, internally coherent, internationally recognized definition of sustainable development or of the “right to development” does not exist (any more)…neither in the academic and scientific field nor in the political and economic sphere can agreement be found, or accepted as binding, on the subject of what development really means. Thus, in Agenda 21 the term ‘development’ is therefore open to (almost) any interpretation.’
(Unmussig, 1993: 112-114)
When it comes to assessing the consequences of the UNCED, opinion shifts between two extremes. On the one hand we have pragmatic optimism, which expresses satisfaction with the knowledge transfer amongst politicians, ministerial bureaucrats and non-governmental organisations, which can be seen as the beginning of a shift in consciousness with practical repercussions for international environment and development policy. However, on the other hand, those holding the opposite viewpoint, that of disappointment, tend to feel disillusioned in view of UNCED’s inadequate results and talk about politicians’ failure to arrive at an understanding for a life-favouring and nature sustaining economic and development policy, let alone to introduce the first steps towards its realization.
Conclusions
In conclusion then, it is clear that the 1980s has been witness to genuinely new ideas regarding development and the need for social and environmental sustainability. In the aftermath of the Brundtland Report and Rio Conference, issues concerning sustainable development have become inextricably linked with the discourse on the rich / poor power divide including the politics of rights and responsibilities.
Following on from its famous ‘hype and demise’ portrayal through the press, critics of the Rio Conference have slated it, insulting it as a failure or even propaganda. What must be remembered here is that the shift towards sustainable development was never going to be easy. The topic of the conference itself is a huge challenge for humanity and one that can only be overcome if forces are joined at every level.
Issues concerning sustainable development are extremely complex with constant competition of conflicting needs and interests. What is needed for the future must far outstretch current debates concerning definitional concerns and help put policy into action. To date, although there has been a heightened awareness of, and debate over, the compelling needs for action, there is not yet a concerted and decisive response to the magnitude and urgency for sustainable development in the aftermath of Rio.
Bibliography
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