Education Resources

“… the people who will succeed fifteen years from now, the countries which will succeed, are those which are most based on a sustainable vision of the world. That is what we should be training people to do.”

A report in 2005 suggested that two-thirds of the worlds resources have already been ‘used up’ and that ‘human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted’. The report concluded that ‘in many cases it is literally a matter of living on borrowed time… we are depleting assets at the expense of our children’ (The Guardian, 2005). At the current time many predict that we are facing an energy crisis (Appleyard, 2005, Lalumia, 2007). Particular focus has been given to the dwindling supply of oil, the massive consumption of which allows us to live in the world we do today [1]. With oil reaching peak production [2] and new sources proving difficult to discover [3], the world is facing fundamental challenges about how we consume and source energy.

Furthermore, the current energy consumption is impacting the environment. In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] released a report that states that ‘warming of the climate is unequivocal’ and that ‘most of the global average warming over the past 50 years is very likely due to anthropogenic [4] GHG [green house gases] increases and it is likely that there is a discernible human-induced warming’ (p72).

The current focus on sustainability is a reflection that today’s world is not sustainable. The world faces the challenge of implementing renewable resources that do not damage the environment, and the task of dealing with the climate change that has already happened due to GHG emissions over the last 100 years.

What does sustainability mean?

The word ‘sustainability’ is frequently used in a variety of situations to describe slightly different things. Most dictionaries define ‘sustainability’ ‘as the ability to continue an action without the risk of failure or collapse’ (Wise Geek, 2008). Therefore, in environmental terms, sustainability ‘implies that an action can be continued indefinitely with little, or manageable, impact on the environment’ (Wise Geek, 2008).

What is sustainable development?

The UK government defines sustainable development as ‘meeting four objectives at the same time’, both in the UK and the wider world:

However, quoting just these four points is missing the main lesson to be learnt from how unsustainable development has occurred: the pursuit of economic, social and environmental goals separately. Sustainable development ‘is about progressing them together (Forum for the Future, 2004).

A good definition in real terms is that: ‘Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but in the indefinite future’ (Wikipedia, 2008a).

Why now?

The first major international discussion of environmental issues was the United Nations conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in 1972. The agenda was extremely broad and touched upon virtually all aspects of natural resource use. However, the focus was drawn towards the threat to the natural environment posed by economic growth and industrial pollution. This created a problem: developing countries argued that poverty was a bigger problem than this threat to the environment, and the answer to their poverty was in fact economic growth and industry. Stockholm, therefore, highlighted the different interests of nations across the world – those nations that want economic growth and industry to combat poverty (the developing world), and the developed world that is relatively rich wanting to address the major environmental issues through considering economic growth and industrial pollution as a problem [5](United Nations, 1997).

Gradually this debate was to arrive at a startling conclusion that reconciled these conflicting objectives: environmental protection and long-term economic growth are complementary and even mutually dependent. This new idea became known as ‘sustainable development’. Sustainable development gained credence during the 1980s and was formally introduced to the world stage in 1987 when the World Commission on Environment and Development [WCED] published its report Our Common Future. [6] The WCED was challenged with proposing ‘long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development by the year 2000 and beyond’ (WCED, p11). In her 1987 introduction to the report chairman Gro Harlem Brundtland [7] already recognised that:

Once it had a chance to consider the report the UN General Assembly called for the UN Conference on Environment and Development [UNCED] to ‘lay a foundation for a global partnership between the developing and the more industrialized countries, based on mutual needs and common interests, that would ensure a healthy future for the planet’ (United Nations, 1997a). This conference became the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

During this summit essentially ‘over 170 governments agreed that human development aspirations and the capacity of the environment to support them were on a collision course’ (Forum for the Future, 2004). This conclusion acknowledged that the current world (particularly the developed world, the West) was creating a world that could not continue indefinitely as it was not sustainable.

The 1992 Earth Summit led to sustainable development becoming the ‘overarching policy framework within which governments would seek to address the challenges of unsustainable development patterns’ (Forum for the Future, 2004). At this point in history sustainable development was defined as: ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (Forum for the Future, 2004).

However, whilst the frameworks put into place were fine in principle [8], they were not legally binding. Two legally binding Conventions [9] aimed at preventing climate change and the eradication of the diversity of biological species were opened for signature at the summit [10]. These conventions, whilst technically described as legally binding, were in fact merely an encouragement for industrialized countries to reduce their emissions. They would only become legally binding commitments if the signatories later signed up to the actual treaty on climate change.

The treaty that intended to implement the objectives and principles agreed in the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC] was negotiated in Japan in 1997 and became known as the Kyoto Protocol (Grubb, 2008). The Kyoto Protocol puts into place legally binding targets for 37 industrialised countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions [GHG]. The reduction, on average, amounts to five per cent against 1990 levels over the five year period 2008-2012 (UNFCCC, 2008). However, only countries that sign up to (ratify) the agreement have any legal obligation to reduce GHG. As of 16 October 2008, 182 countries and the EEC have ‘deposited instruments of ratification, accession, approval or acceptance. These countries are currently responsible for 63.7% of world GHG emissions (UNFCCC, 2008a).

Although the US signed the convention in 1992, they later backed out of the subsequent Kyoto agreement [11] (Shah, 2004). The US is responsible for over a quarter of the world’s total GHG emissions [12], yet has refused to cooperate with the global agreements in place to reduce these emissions (Centre for Science, 2008). However, with elections in the US taking place shortly, there is a possibility that this position may be reversed by the new president as there is growing public support in the US for a global environmental commitment, and indications that the new president may provide it (Nance, 2008, Pearce, 2008).

Problems of the global commitment to reducing GHG emissions are clearly apparent with the strained and uncoordinated approach to the Kyoto agreement. Furthermore, this highlights the real problems of global action: the will to face economic and social challenges to reduce GHG emissions. Although the Kyoto agreement is legally binding its actual targets for GHG reductions are slight and vary between countries (BBC, 2003). That even an agreement for a slight reduction of emissions has not been signed universally is a condemnation of the ability of the world to cooperate in beginning the reduction of global warming [13].

Furthermore, not all of the countries that have signed up to the Kyoto agreement are actually meeting their obligations. Canada, for example, was one of the first signatories but has in 2005 had no clear plan for reaching its target emission cuts. In fact, since 1990 its emissions have actually increased by 20% (BBC, 2005a). The UK [14] is actually set to meet its target of ensuring emissions were at least 12.5% lower than base year levels, on average, over the period 2008 to 2012. UK emissions were in fact 14.6% below base levels in 2004 and projected to be about 19.4% below base year levels in 2010 (UNFCCC, 2006, p6).

The Kyoto protocol provides an important step towards providing a global, legally binding agreement to tackle climate change. However, it also ably demonstrates the current limitations of taking action on climate change. Some countries refuse to sign up to it for financial reasons; others sign up but are currently failing to meet their reductions; whilst others are exceeding targets. Brundtland highlighted the need for ‘coordinated political action and responsibility’ in 1987; it has not yet become a reality. This is the reason for the current focus on educating people on sustainable development, as education is the first step in changing peoples’ fundamental attitude towards the current use of energy and the environmental consequences that such usage creates.

What happens next?

The current commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012. By this point the world needs to create a new international framework, one that is ratified by every country and can ‘deliver the stringent emission reductions the [IPCC] have clearly indicated are needed’ (UNFCCC, 2008). The five scenarios consider the 2012 agreement and the different consequences of each scenario are heavily influenced by the success or failure of the world to act together to combat climate change and tackle the consumption of energy.

2012 is less than 4 years away. Only with a majority of the world’s citizens properly educated and informed on the issues regarding sustainable development (and better warned of the consequences of continued unsustainable living) can humanity stand a better chance of making the right long-term commitments during the 2012 negotiations.

1 - Not only does the majority of human transport rely on oil but our food system (Church, 2008), computers, modern medicine, national defence, microchips and even the internet are reliant on cheap oil (this list is by no means exhaustive) (Savinar, 2008)

2 - Peak oil refers to the point at which oil production reaches its maximum output. After this point the production of oil will fall until there is none left. As oil production falls current trends predict that demand will still be rising, increasing the energy shortfall that will need to be met by other sources (Savinar, 2008

3 - David Kirsch, director of market intelligence for the PFC Energy consulting firm describes this as ‘running an oil deficit’ where for at least a decade the world has been producing more oil than it is discovering (Baker, 2008). Another writer concludes: ‘The world's problem is as follows. We now consume six barrels of oil for every new barrel we discover’ (Monbiot, 2004)

4 - Caused by humans.

5 - This is not true of all developed countries, of which many have resisted attempts to curb industrial growth and carbon emissions often stating that doing so would be too economically damaging. However, the UN seems to be referring to developed countries as recognising industrial pollution as a problem, whereas poorer countries still viewed it as a solution relative to the greater problems of poverty.

6 - Better known as the Brundtland report

7 - Female Prime Minister of Norway for two terms: 1986-1989 and 1990-1996 (Wikipedia, 2008)

8 - The three agreements in relation to sustainable development were: Agenda 21 – a comprehensive programme of action in all areas of sustainable development; the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development – a series of principles defining the rights and responsibilities of States and the Statement of Forest Principles – a set of principles to underlie the sustainable management of forests worldwide (United Nations, 1997a).

9 - The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity (United Nations, 1997a).

10 - The principles were watered down somewhat by the refusal of the United States to attend the Rio summit if there were binding commitments to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions (Shah, 2004).

13 - It must be noted, however, that some positive action is being taken on a local level to combat climate change. In the US for example the Mayor of Seattle ‘has begun a nationwide effort to do something the bush administration will not: carry out the Kyoto Protocol on global warming… 131 other like-minded mayors have joined a bipartisan coalition to fight global warming on the local level, in an implicit rejection of the administration’s policy’ (Sanders, 2005).

14 - The UK is responsible for 4.3% of the world’s GHG emissions (UNFCC, 2008b).

Reference List

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