Sustainable Development Within the Poor World

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Recommended: The nature of sustainable development

This essay intends to address the argument that the concept of sustainable development robs the Poor World of any possibility of convergence with the Rich World. Sustainable development is the new buzz word in the game of development and economic growth. As such sustainable development will be examined at a conceptual level and its implications for the Poor World and LDCs will be drawn out. At a practical level a case study of climate change and how this environmental challenge can be addressed through sustainable development will also be examined. Through this case study it will be established that the concept of sustainable development robs the Poor World of any possibility of convergence with the Rich World if and only if the Rich World does not in this global push toward sustainable development support the Poor World both financially and technically. Essentially without this support the Poor World cannot and will not be able to concurrently purse the all important goals of economic development and environmental sustainability.

In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development conceptualised the idea of a sustainable society as one that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (cited in Meadows et al. 2004, p. 254). Herman Daly thus contends that in determining the sustainability of an economy’s economic output the following criteria must be meet, “its rates of use of renewable resources do not exceed their rates of regeneration, its rates of use of non-renewable resources do not exceed the rate at which sustainable renewable substitutes are developed and its rates of pollution emission do not exceed the assimilative capacity of the envi...

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...hington, DC, 2010, chp. 2.

United Nations Development Programme, 2006, Human Development Report 2006, New York, UNDP, pp. 263-273.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 2010, UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún delivers balanced package of decisions, restores faith in multilateral process, United Nations, Bonn, Germany, 2010, pp. 1-2.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 2011, The least developed countries – Reducing vulnerability to climate change, climate variability and extremes, land degradation and loss of biodiversity: Environmental and developmental challenges and opportunities, United Nations, Bonn, Germany, 2011, pp. 1-15.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF), 2010, Living planet report 2010 – Biodiversity, biocapacity and development’, WWF, Switzerland, 2010, pp. 1-9, 34 & 85-86.

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