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All mandatory literature of sustainable development in a global context, summarized and easily readable.
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Summary of Baker (2016)
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Chapter 5: global governance and UN environmentsummits
The UN has over 30 organizations that try to contribute to a global governance of the
promotion of sustainable development.
Multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) – legally binding agreement between
states relating to environmental matters
Global environmental governance – is the defining and execution of rules regarding the
environment, to make sure that state and non-state cooperate with each other, creating a
global collective governance.
The Brundtland report stated that we cannot have SD when the power is not distributed
evenly: the poor people also need to have a say in the measures. The Rio summit added to
this by saying that we cannot have SD when the countries itself aren’t governed well. You
need a certain level of transparency, distribution of power and equality.
There was a lot of critique about the Rio earth summit.
The Congo basin forest partnership was started at the 2002 world summit (WSSD). It is a
project that has the aim to sustain the Congo forest, since it contains a quarter of the world’s
tropical forests. The US government and like 20 other agencies took part in the project.
Summarizing the role of the UN summits and conferences:
Positive:
- It helps to organize international agreements
- It increases the international co-operation
- Encourage participation of states
- Develop the mutual understandings
Negative:
- It allows only for the elite to participate
- Ignores the locals
- National interests remain dominant
- Ineffective, poorly funded
While the states remain the key role in SD, the UN has helped to open the system of
international governance, by linking different organizations with each other, and thus
stimulating co-operation.
Chapter 6: climate change and sustainable futures
Understanding climate change
The main cause of climate change (the effect mankind has on the earth) is adding to the
greenhouse effect, as result of human activities. The greenhouse gasses (GHG’s) block heat
from escaping the earth. These gasses are there because of the release of CO2.
Deforestation also adds to this problem. These effects cause a change in weather, ocean
acidity, changes to forest and ecosystems.
Global environmental change – a global level of environmental change, sea level rising for
example.
, Prevention of climate change:
- Mitigation – prevent further degradation of the climate by technological changes
- Adaptation – adjusting to climate change that is already underway (initiatives that
reduce the impact mankind has, and adapting to problems that are already there)
- Promoting sustainable development – removing the structural conditions that
cause climate change
Geoengineering – the intentional manipulation of the environment on global scale. E.g.
placing mirrors in space to reflect sunlight, adding iron to the ocean so the ocean eats up
more CO2 than it does nowadays.
There are different ways to measure how big the influence of certain countries is on the
environment. Overall, are the developing countries worse than the developed countries.
However, if you measure it per capita, you can see that the countries where fossil fuels are
produced (e.g. Qatar) are the worst.
The impact of climate change is negative. Impact such as extinction of species, warmer sea
temperatures, loss of ecosystems, disruption to agriculture, etc. some scientist even say that
we are living in a new geological period, the Anthropocene.
On page 178 is a summary of the impacts of climate change.
One way to handle climate change is by fighting for human rights, and design governance
principles for justice, the idea is that everyone in the world will have these: support the right
to development, highlight gender equality, use effective partnerships.
Kyoto protocol - legally binds developed countries to meet their SD goals. The EU had the
goal to reduce their pollution by 8%. They could spread these goals over different countries,
so fewer polluting countries could fix more polluting countries
The Kyoto mechanisms:
1. International emission trading – low emission countries can compensate for high
emission countries
2. Joint implementation – allows states to gain credit for emission reductions they
helped to achieve in another country.
3. Clean development mechanism – this allows developed countries to help
developing countries to reduce their costs.
Critiques for the Kyoto mechanisms:
- Countries have tried to exploit loopholes in the agreements.
- African governments argued that because their emission levels are so low, there are
not enough options to implement the mechanisms.
Chapter 11: challenges in the third world
Since the beginning of the 20th centuries have developing countries been trying to reach a
Western standard of living. This goes via the same environmental destruction as the
developed countries have done. For example, China is destructing a whole lot (Ch. 12)
the inequalities in consumption are huge: the richest 20 percent of the world’s population
uses 86 percent of goods. The poorest 20 percent around 1.3%.
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