Development and climate change

Søren Friis, intern at the Nordic Desk at UNRIC in Brussels

Human development and climate change are arguably the two main challenges currently facing the planet. This is to a large extent reflected in the priorities of the United Nations system, where a myriad of agencies, funds and programmes devote their energy and resources to one or both of these issues: 33 such bodies are “UN partners on climate change”, while there are 32 members of the UN Development Group. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a key member of both, and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) also holds dual membership.

In the UN, it is increasingly common to see statements or claims that the issues of climate change and development are interrelated or interlinked. For instance, the Human Development Report 2007/08 states: “Development progress is increasingly going to be hindered by climate change. So we must see the fight against poverty and the fight against the effects of climate change as interrelated efforts.”1 The foreword to the report, co-signed by the heads of the UNDP and UNEP, also states: “In the long run climate change is a massive threat to human development and in some places it is already undermining the international community’s efforts to reduce extreme poverty.” From these types of statements, there is little doubt that, from a UN point of view, the two issues are seen as closely linked.

However, from a critical perspective, reducing poverty – Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 1 and a central aim of development efforts – and combating climate change can seem like contradictory rather than interrelated goals. The reason, in simple terms, is that reducing poverty also means increasing the level of human production and consumption, which release greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, and thus cause climate change. There is no doubt that both development and climate change are – and should be – priorities for the UN, but since they do not necessarily go hand in hand, it is reasonable to ask “how are the two issues reconciled within the UN?”.

I am particularly interested in the role of discourse or ‘ideology’ in this regard. I believe that the UN can be thought of as the playing field of a ‘development ideology’, in the sense that a system of thought concerning development exists, which is capable of encompassing a number of ideas, beliefs or priorities, some of which may seem contradictory. We see this most notably in the UNDP’s embrace of such diverse issues as poverty reduction, democratic governance, gender issues, crisis prevention and, critically, climate change.2 The embrace of climate change can also be seen in claims to the effect that “stabilising greenhouse emissions to limit climate change … is an essential part of our overall fight against poverty and for the MDGs.”3

But how has climate change become a development issue? For one, the past two decades have seen the creation of a novel terminology linking the two together, most prominently through the term ‘sustainable development’. Sustainable development is a key UN concept, which can be seen, for example, in publications explaining “how sustainable development underpins the MDGs”4. While there is no MDG exclusively devoted to combating climate change, MDG 7 – ensuring environmental sustainability – speaks of reducing CO2 emissions and prominently mentions integrating “the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes”.5

However, the term ‘sustainable development’ has attracted criticism over its ambiguity, since it houses a never-resolved tension over whether we are pursuing ‘sustainable development’ for the sake of the environment (known as the ‘ecocentrist’ conception of sustainable development) or for the sake of people (the ‘anthropocentric’ conception).6 7 8

Considering the quotations above in light of this schism, it is clear that the UN system seems to prioritize ‘anthropocentrism’ rather than ‘ecocentrism’, i.e., “environment for development” as even UNEP’s motto remarkably goes.9 A concrete example of this anthropocentric focus is agriculture. According to a statement by Ban Ki-moon, “if left unchecked, climate change will affect agricultural production.”10 This is undeniably true, but if the statements were reversed so that it read “if left unchecked, agricultural production will affect climate change”, it would still be true! Yet one rarely, if ever, comes across statements to this effect. So although unsustainable agricultural practices have presented a significant challenge for both human societies and the environment through time, the above quote places the focus on the needs of humans rather than on the environment in and of itself.11

For that reason, I argue that in the UN ‘development ideology’, anthropocentric concerns are to a large degree considered over ecocentrist concerns. Of course, the UN should take into account the needs and concerns of “we, the peoples” and the states that make up its membership, but much could be gained from considering development and climate change issues from a vantage point that better combines so-called anthropocentrism and ecocentrism. I am not arguing that the UN is not taking climate change or other environmental issues seriously, but simply advocating the adoption of an approach to development and climate change that treats the two issues as equals, rather than merely looking at one (climate change) through the prism of the other (development).

Notably, one finds a related tendency in UNDP publications that emphasise adaptation rather than mitigation, often focusing on “coping” or “increasing resilience” to climate change,12 rather than combating it. As the UNDP increases its visibility on climate change issues, I believe it should remember scholarly warnings that adaptation is not a substitute for mitigation.13 14

According to statements from the UNDP, climate change is “a central development challenge of this new century”, even “the defining human development issue of our generation”.15 We should remember that climate change – although certainly interlinked with development – is not only a development issue, but also an issue concerning the future of the planet itself. Therefore, we should be careful not to fit the issue of climate change solely into the framework of development.
Finally, the UN should prepare to engage in a vital discussion of the relationship between its broader climate change and development goals. Such a debate is likely to arise, not least concerning whether combining development and climate change efforts to “not slow down but rather accelerate socio-economic progress” is an achievable or a self-contradictory goal.16 ■


Explanation: 'Sustainable development' and its critics

According to the Brundtland Commission, 'sustainable development' is a form of development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” In this way, the concept of ‘sustainable development’ ties together concerns for the planet's environmental carrying capacity with the socio-economic challenges facing humanity. But although the term offers a handy way of conceptually linking these two vital issues, it has attracted criticism over its vagueness or eclecticism, masking an underlying tension between the two different views on its desired meaning. One of these is the so-called ecocentric (or nature-centred) conception, while the other is the anthropocentric (or people-centred) conception.

Some critics have even gone so far as to call ‘sustainable development’ an oxymoron: Proponents of de-growth believe that no sustainable development exists, at least not for the 20 per cent of the planet's population who consume or exploit 80 per cent of its natural resources. Logically, nor would the planet be able to sustain developing countries reaching the 'developed' level of consumption. The problem is, of course, that any insistence from developed countries that the developing world should pursue non-growth would be met with accusations of paternalism or hypocrisy, as is currently the case for calls to pursue a 'greener' form of growth.

References

1. UNDP, Human Development Report 2007/2008 - Summary. Available at undp.org.

2. See “What We Do” at undp.org.

3. See 1.

4. The World Bank, MDGs & the Environment, 2008. Available at worldbank.org.

5. See un.org/millenniumgoals.

6. J.-M. Jancovici, “A quoi sert le développement durable?,” 2002. Available at manicore.com. See also L. Ferry, “Protéger l'espèce humaine contre elle-même,” in Revue des Deux Mondes, October-November 2007, pp. 75-79.

7. J. Stan Rowe, “Ecocentrism: the Chord that Harmonizes Humans and Earth," in The Trumpeter 11, 1994, pp. 106-107. Available at ecospherics.net.

8. For a critique of ‘anthropocentrism’, see e.g. D. Foreman, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior, 1991. Crown Publishing Group.

9. See main page at unep.org.

10. Ban Ki-moon, “Remarks to the seventeenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development”, 13 May 2009. Available at un.org.

11. J. Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Suceed, 2005. Viking Press.

12. UNDP, Climate Change at UNDP: Scaling Up to Meet the Challenge. Available at undp.org. See also 1.

13. As examples, see 12. and the August 2009 launch of undpcc.org.

14. S. Huq, Climate Change: Turning a threat into an opportunity, lecture in Brussels on 7 July 2009.

15. See 12. and undp.org/climatechange.

16. See undp.org/climatechange.