CHAPTER TWO

ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT: SOME ISSUES

2.1 The Environment and Emerging Development Issues

In terms of international development initiatives, the 1980s were a decade of transition. This was
a time when searches for new and comprehensive programs to poverty, population,
overconsumption, and the environment began to be taken seriously. More specifically, it was
during this decade that a conceptual shift from ‘traditional economic growth’ towards
‘sustainable development’ started to take place. This new movement was formally articulated in
1987 with the publication of a book entitled Our Common Future. It was in this report that
sustainable development was given its most commonly accepted definition, as ‘development that
meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs’.

There has been a growing realization in national governments and multinational institutions that
it is impossible to separate economic development issues from environmental issue; many forms
of development erode the environmental resources upon which they must be based, and
environmental degradation can undermine economic development. Poverty is a major cause and
effect of global environmental problems. It is therefore futile to attempt to deal with
environmental problems without a broader perspective that encompasses the factors underlying
world poverty and international inequality. Environmental problems are not only linked to
poverty as it exists in the developing countries but also to inequalities in consumption and
production patterns globally.
This globalization of the environmental problem was in fact the driving force for holding the
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit) in Rio de
Janeiro in 1992. This Rio Summit was followed by a number of other global conferences
throughout the 1990s, all dealing with some specific aspect of the population, poverty and
environmental interactions and from a global perspective. Each one of these global conferences
was followed by ambitious action programs or declarations to be further debated and possibly
implemented at some future dates. The unifying theme of these conferences has been sustainable
development, and the specific topic (population, environment, social and economic equity,
gender, human settlements, etc.) of each conference reflected the particular perspective from
which sustainable development has been pursued.
It could be argued that there has been a wide gulf between the stated goals of the global
conventions of the above kind and their actual achievements. However, in spite of this, the
cumulative effect of these conferences has been to change the perceptions of the global
communities on how to deal with problems of poverty, population and the environment in a
number of concrete ways:

1. First and foremost, these problems are now viewed as being global, and as such their solutions
require cooperative international actions.

2. Second, there is a growing realization by the international communities that economic growth
cannot be considered a problem by itself; the way development takes place matters a lot.

3. Third, enduring solutions to problems of poverty, population and the environment require
careful examinations of some specific issues that have been somewhat neglected until recently.
These include gender, governance, the empowerment of the poor, and social and economic
equity.
The population, poverty and environmental problems of developing countries have no simple
solutions, and a comprehensive approach to resolving these problems demands careful
assessment of all the political, social, economic, technical, ecological, and ethical aspects of
these problems. While the poor nations of the world should be held accountable for solving their
own economic and environmental problems, reality dictates that meaningful resolution of these
problems requires international cooperation in efforts to make global resource consumption and
international trade environmentally sustainable.
Furthermore, it is important to note that the rich nations have a moral obligation to find solutions
to the poverty and environmental crisis in the developing countries since they are directly
responsible for many of the regional and global environmental problems resulting from their
overconsumption of resources on a per capita basis. A significant percentage of total global
petroleum, paper, metals, wood, and fishery products are consumed by the population of the
developed (rich) countries. These products originate from territories that are under the
jurisdiction of the developing countries and are extracted at significant environmental costs that
are not adequately reflected in their market prices. Moreover, with the increasing globalization of
natural resources markets, the developed countries’ contribution to environmental stresses and
resource depletion in the developing regions of the world is likely to grow in the future.

2.2 Population Growth and the Environment

Between 1960 and 1999, Earth's population doubled from three billion to six billion people. In
many ways, this reflected good news for humanity: child mortality rates plummeted, life
expectancy increased, and people were on average healthier and better nourished than at any
time in history. However, during the same period, changes in the global environment began to
accelerate: pollution heightened, resource depletion continued, and the threat of rising sea levels
increased. Does the simultaneous occurrence of population growth and environmental decline
over the past century indicate that more people translate into greater environmental degradation?
No simple relationship exists between population size and environmental change. However, as
global population continues to grow, limits on such global resources as arable land, potable
water, forests, and fisheries have come into sharper focus. In the second half of the twentieth
century, decreasing farmland contributed to growing concern of the limits to global food
production.

The distribution of people around the globe has three main implications for the environment.
First, as less-developed regions cope with a growing share of population, pressures intensify on
already dwindling resources within these areas. Second, migration shifts relative pressures
exerted on local environments, easing the strain in some areas and increasing it in others. Finally,
urbanization, particularly in less-developed regions, frequently outpaces the development of
infrastructure and environmental regulations, often resulting in high levels of pollution.
Population composition can also have an effect on the environment because different population
subgroups behave differently. For example, the global population has both the largest cohort of
young people (age 24 and under) and the largest proportion of elderly in history. Migration
propensities vary by age. Young people are more likely than their older counterparts to migrate,
primarily as they leave the parental home in search of new opportunities. As a result, given the
relatively large younger generation, we might anticipate increasing levels of migration and
urbanization, and therefore, intensified urban environmental concerns.
Other aspects of population composition are also important: income is especially relevant to
environmental conditions. Across countries, the relationship between economic development and
environmental pressure resembles an inverted U-shaped curve; nations with economies in the
middle-development range are most likely to exert powerful pressures on the natural
environment, mostly in the form of intensified resource consumption and the production of
wastes. By contrast, the least-developed nations, because of low levels of industrial activity, are
likely to exert relatively lower levels of environmental pressure. At highly advanced
development stages, environmental pressures may subside because of improved technologies and
energy efficiency.
Current technology, policies, and culture influence the relationship between human population
dynamics and the natural environment. The technological changes that have most affected
environmental conditions relate to energy use. Policy actions can ameliorate environmental
decline – as in the case of emissions standards – or exacerbate degradation – as in the case in
Central Asia's Aral Sea basin, which has shrunk 40 percent since 1960 and has become
increasingly contaminated, in large part because of the irrigation policies of the former Soviet
Union. Cultural factors also influence how populations affect the environment. For example,
cultural variations in attitudes toward wildlife and conservation influence environmental
conservation strategies, because public support for various policy interventions will reflect
societal values.
Recent years have been among the warmest on record. Research suggests that temperatures have
been influenced by growing concentrations of greenhouse gases, which absorb solar radiation
and warm the atmosphere. Research also suggests that many changes in atmospheric gas are
human-induced. The demographic influence appears primarily in three areas. First, contributions
related to industrial production and energy consumption lead to carbon dioxide emissions from
fossil fuel use. Second, land-use changes such as deforestation, affect the exchange of carbon
dioxide between the Earth and the atmosphere. Third, some agricultural processes, such as
paddy-rice cultivation and livestock production, are responsible for greenhouse gas releases into
the atmosphere, especially methane. According to one estimate, population growth will account
for 35 percent of the global increase in CO2 emissions between 1985 and 2100 and 48 percent of
the increase in developing nations during that period. As such, both attention to demographic
issues and the development of sustainable production and consumption processes are central
responses to the processes involved in global warming.

Going by statistical relationship, there exists negative correlation between income level and
population growth rate. The theory of demographic transition is one of the successful
explanations for this relationship. The theory postulates four stages through which population
dynamics progress, as shown in Figure 1.3.
In the first stage, populations are characterized by high birth-rates and high death rates. In the
second stage, rising real incomes result in improved nutrition and developments in public health
which lead to declines in death-rates and rapidly rising population levels. This is the stage of
population explosion. As a consequence of population explosion, heavy migration of people
starts from rural area to urban area and eventually the population density starts rising in urban
cities. This demands and also paves the way for “deforestation” and “industrialization” with
increasing pollutants in cities. This is the stage where the environment is deeply threatened with
increasing industrial wastes.
In the third stage of the demographic transition, economic forces lead to reduced fertility rates.
These forces include increasing costs of childbearing and family care, reduced benefits of large
family size, and higher opportunity costs of employment in the home. Socio-economic changes
appear at this stage which eventually changes in the economic roles and status of women. In the
final stage, economies with relatively high income per person will be characterized by low, and
approximately equal, birth- and death-rates, and so stable population sizes. The final stage is the
stage where ecosystem resilience develops and the pollution and environment control appears.

Figure 1.3: The Demographic Transition

The theory of demographic transition succeeds in describing the observed population dynamics
of many developed countries quite well. For many developing countries the second stage was
reached not as a consequence of rising real income (as it is in case of developed nations) but
rather as a consequence of knowledge and technological transfer. In particular, public health
measures and disease control techniques were introduced from overseas at a very rapid rate. The
adoption of such measures was compressed into a far shorter period of time in developing
countries than had occurred in the early industrialized countries. As a result the mortality rates
fell at unprecedented speed in developing nations. The accompanying population explosions
created the potential for a vicious cycle of poverty, in which the resources required for economic
development (and so for a movement to the third stage of the demographic transition), were
crowded out by rapid population expansion.
In the conclusive note thus it can be safely recommended that impact of population explosion,
associated with increasing population density in cities, on environmental degradation can be
controlled by the increasing pace of development and also by adopting comprehensive
population policy.
2.3 Economic Growth and the Environment
Will the world be able to sustain economic growth indefinitely without despoiling the
environment beyond repair? What is the relationship between a steady increase in income and
environmental quality? Are there tradeoffs between the goals of achieving high and sustainable
rates of economic growth and attaining high standards of environmental quality?

For some social and physical scientists such as Georgescu-Roegen and Meadows et al., growing
economic activity (production and consumption) requires larger inputs of energy and material,
and generates larger quantities of waste by-products. Increased extraction of natural resources,
accumulation of waste and concentration of pollutants will therefore overwhelm the carrying
capacity of the biosphere and result in the degradation of environmental quality and a decline in
human welfare, despite rising incomes. Furthermore, it is argued that degradation of the resource
base will eventually put economic activity itself at risk. To save the environment and even
economic activity from itself, economic growth must cease and the world must make a transition
to a steady-state economy.
At the other extreme, are those who argue that the fastest road to environmental improvement is
along the path of economic growth: with higher incomes comes increased demand for goods and
services that are less material intensive, as well as demand for improved environmental quality
that leads to the adoption of environmental protection measures. Some economists believe that
economic growth provides a basis on which sustained environmental improvements can and
often do occur. As per capita incomes rise, a share of the new wealth can be used to buy cleaner
fuels like natural gas and to develop more energy-efficient technologies.
There are other ways in which a rise in per capita national income can protect the environment.
 Higher real household incomes are associated with lower fertility rates which has an impact on
the natural rate of population growth and the ever-increasing claims that population growth
makes on the world’s scarce resources.

 Richer countries also have the resources to devote to public and private sector research and
development (R & D).

 The positive spill-over effects of R & D might include the development of cleaner and less
resource-intensive production technologies, more fuel efficient and less-polluting fuels and
improved energy efficiency in homes and businesses.

Some went as far as claiming that environmental regulation, by reducing economic growth, may
actually reduce environmental quality.

Yet, others have hypothesized that the relationship between economic growth and environmental
quality, whether positive or negative, is not fixed along a country’s development path; indeed it
may change sign from positive to negative as a country reaches a level of income at which
people demand and afford more efficient infrastructure and a cleaner environment. The implied
inverted-U relationship between environmental degradation and economic growth came to be
known as the “environmental Kuznets curve,” by analogy with the income inequality
relationship postulated by Kuznets.
The Kuznets curve suggests a bell-shaped relationship between the concentration of certain
pollution emissions and per-capita real GDP. As lower-income countries industrialize, intensive
burning of relatively dirty fossil fuels initially fuels production and consumption and causes
some of the world's worst urban air pollution in low-income countries (ELDC's). At low levels of
development, both the quantity and the intensity of environmental degradation are limited to the
impacts of subsistence economic activity on the resource base and to limited quantities of
biodegradable wastes. As agriculture and resource-extraction intensify and industrialization takes
off, both resource depletion and waste generation accelerate. At higher levels of development,

structural change towards information-based industries and services, more efficient technologies,
and increased demand for environmental quality result in leveling-off and a steady decline of
environmental degradation, as seen in Figure 1.4.
The issue of whether environmental degradation i) increases monotonically, ii) decreases
monotonically, or iii) first increases and then declines along a country’s development path, has
critical implications for policy.

A monotonic increase of environmental degradation with economic growth calls for strict
environmental regulations and even limits on economic growth to ensure a sustainable scale of
economic activity within the ecological life-support system. A monotonic decrease of
environmental degradation along a country’s development path suggests that policies that
accelerate economic growth lead also to rapid environmental improvements and no explicit
environmental policies are needed; indeed, they may be counterproductive if they slow down
economic growth and thereby delay environmental improvement. Finally, if the environmental
Kuznets curve hypothesis is supported by evidence, development policies have the potential of
being environmentally benign over the long run (at high incomes), but they are also capable of
significant environmental damage in the short-to-medium run (at low-to-medium-level incomes).

2.4 Sustainable Development and Economic Policies

In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development defined sustainable
development as: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs". This definition is the one most often cited,
but the World Commission also made the following observations:
1. Sustainable development requires that overriding priority be given to meeting basic human
needs, especially those of the poor, and recognition of the limitations associated with technology
and social organizations that impact the capacity of the environment to meet both present and
future needs.

2. Sustainable development requires the integration of economic and ecological considerations in

decision-making.

3. Governments must make key national, economic, and sector-specific agencies directly
responsible for ensuring that their policies and activities support development that is
economically and ecologically sustainable.

4. No single blueprint exists for sustainable development, because conditions vary among
countries. Each country will have to create its own approach to reflect its needs.

5. No quick-fix solutions exist. The journey towards sustainable development is often as

important as the end product.

6. The outcome will not always leave everyone better off. There will be winners and losers,
always making achievement of sustainable development difficult.

Given the above observations from the World Commission, many different interpretations have
emerged for sustainable development. In developed countries, the main interest has focused upon
integrating environmental and economic considerations into decisions about development.
Particular emphasis has been given to intergenerational equity (how to ensure that decisions
taken today do not have unreasonably negative effects on future generations). For developed
countries, there has been concern that in striving to avoid environmental degradation, decisions
do not jeopardize economic competitiveness at a global scale.
The perspective of developing countries has been different, with priority usually being on how to
meet basic needs of present citizens. Thus, the focus has been on intragenerational equity (i.e.,
fair treatment for the present generation), in the belief that people whose basic needs are not met
will not worry about long-term environmental degradation. Furthermore, to ensure meeting basic
needs, developing countries often give priority to achieving economic development. These
countries are offended when developed countries argue they should forego the economic
benefits. At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, these different interpretations led to major
disagreements between representatives of developed and developing countries.
In the debate over approaches to sustainable development, some view sustainable development
as a vague and ambiguous concept, leading people to define it to suit their own interests – either
economic development or environmental protection. Some suggest that its emphasis on
achieving balance between economic development and environmental protection overlooks the
importance of ensuring sensitivity to the social and cultural attributes of societies. Others argue
that sustainable development imposes the values of Western capitalist systems, and therefore
reject it on ideological grounds. Yet supporters of sustainable development argue that ambiguity
provides desirable flexibility to customize strategies to reflect the needs and conditions of
different countries and societies. Furthermore, its attention to the importance of protecting the
environment is viewed as an essential counterbalance to a pattern of decision-making that often
gives overriding precedence to economic benefits, regardless of environmental and social costs.

Sustainability has different dimensions. Environmental sustainability requires that industrial and
agricultural development conform to the expandable but limited carrying of biotic communities.
Social sustainability requires that just and informed citizens participate in the governance and
improvement of human communities. Economic sustainability requires that environmental costs
be included in consumer prices and that wealth be shard more equitably. As the World
Commission on Environment and Development observed, sustainable development is not a
magic formula to guarantee economic prosperity, ecological integrity, and cultural sensitivity.
However, it has become a powerful concept, triggering much debate and discussion about the
implications of development decisions and has led to much more attention about what is an
appropriate balance among economic and environmental considerations.
Prevailing systems for decision-making in many countries tend to separate economic, social and
environmental factors at the policy, planning and management levels. This influences the actions
of all groups in society, including governments, industry and individuals, and has important
implications for the efficiency and sustainability of development. An adjustment or even a
fundamental reshaping of decision-making, in the light of country-specific conditions, may be
necessary if environment and development is to be put at the centre of economic and political
decision-making, in effect achieving a full integration of these factors. In recent years, some
governments have also begun to make significant changes in the institutional structures of
government in order to enable more systematic consideration of the environment when various
policy decisions are made and the implications of policies in these areas for the environment.
New forms of dialogue are also being developed for achieving better integration among national
and local government, industry, science, environmental groups and the public in the process of
developing effective approaches to environment and development. The responsibility for
bringing about changes lies with governments in partnership with the private sector and local
authorities, and in collaboration with national, regional and international organizations.
Exchange of experience between countries can also be significant. National plans, goals and
objectives, national rules, regulations and law, and the specific situation in which different
countries are placed are the overall framework in which such integration takes place. In this
context, it must be borne in mind that environmental standards may pose severe economic and
social costs if they are uniformly applied in developing countries.