Transcript SDEV 6420 Environmental Sciences for Sustainable

Dr John C. Mutter
Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Professor of International and Public Affairs
is a
noun
is an
adjective
By development we mean
By
we mean
….the challenge of spreading social,
political and economic opportunity to
the entire global community,
particularly the poorest of the poor.
Synonyms for
include:
growth, expansion, progress, advance
increase, maturity, enlargement
improvement
By sustainable we mean ….
(able to be maintained)
……managing the world’s
development in a manner consistent
with the continued healthy
functioning of the Earth’s
ecosystems, oceans, atmosphere and
climate.
The world as seen by a development economist
GDP per capita PPP adjusted
Nordhouse
Today’s divided world
rich
poor
GNP PPP/person
population (billion)
% increase/year
% with HIV/AIDS
$26,320
1.2
0.1
0.5
$4,450
5.3
1.5
1.4
infant mortality rate
6/1000
59/1000
children/woman
1.6
3.0
life expectancy
76
65
% urban
76
41
people/km2
24
64
Global GDP per capita PPP adjusted - displayed with
country area proportional to parameter
Source: www.worldmapper.org
GDP Wealth increases
7yr doubling
10 yr doubling
GDP = C + I + E + G
C = Consumer Spending
I = Investment made by industry
E = Excess of Exports over Imports
G = Government Spending
Human Development Index
° Literacy - nu. in school c/w those who should be.
° Health - life expectancy
° GDP - the usual measure of welfare
Add them up, normalize, range from .0 to 1.000
Norway is top rank, Niger bottom,
Afghanistan next to last (2009)
US is #13, China #92, India 134, Australia #2
http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/
GDP can be high and development low
HDI
GDP
Life expectancy
Gapminder
The distribution appears to
have two parts
Gapminder
Which direction is causation?
Does improved health create wealth, or
does wealth lead to improved health?
Gapminder
Maternal mortality
Young female illiteracy
Human development HDI
A few countries are re-ordered but top and bottom remain
Human development declines
Global GDP per capita PPP adjusted - displayed with
country area proportional to parameter
Source: www.worldmapper.org
HDI
GDP
Maybe measures that emphasize wealth are misleading
The Happy Planet Index!
Life expectancy x Life satisfaction
GDP per capita
PPP adjusted
Ecological
footprint
Even the Happy Planet Index is bi-modal
The Happy Planet Index!
Welfare has been achieved very
unevenly around the world
(regardless of the measure).
What governs the current global
distribution of welfare?
Does geography/environment
matter?
The world as seen by a development economist
GDP per capita PPP adjusted
GDP per
capita as a
function of
latitude.
Poverty has a
latitudinal
dependence
(J. Sachs)
70
HDI lowest 40%
Very few outliers
HDI middle 40%
HDI highest 20%
Latitude
(negative indicates South)
50
30
10
-10
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
-30
-50
-70
HDI (1980-2000)
0.8
1.0
Development curves seem to be bimodal?
Gapminder
Development curves seem to be bimodal?
Gapminder
X t+1
More realistic growth model
xt
X t+1
xc
Stagnation - poverty trap
xt
X t+1
xc
Stagnation
xt
Output density and temperature
Output per capita and temperature
Nordhaus W D PNAS 2006;103:3510-3517
What causes this
development gap?
Can development
get started?
Can prosperity be
maintained?
How big is the
problem?
What would it take to close the gap?
To do nothing more than close the
gap between the top
and the bottom (no growth at the top
no population increase) requires a
4-fold increase in world economic
output.
Add 1.5 billion people (3 billion is
more likely) and allow the top to
continue to prosper,
then closing the development
gap requires a 6-8 Fold
increase in world economic
output.
BUT since the industrial revolution world
economic output has increased at least
40 Fold (some say 50)
and population has increased 4-5 fold.
So, on average, we are 10 times better off
than we were before the industrial
revolution.
All we need to do to close the gap
is achieve a:
6-8 fold increase economic
for only a 50% population
increase
What’s the problem?
If the current rate of economic growth
were to continue on average (forget
inequalities) then by the end of the
century the world’s economic output
would have increased by ??
80 fold
The industrial era growth in prosperity has
been very uneven (the development
discussion) and was achieved at a time
when resources needed for growth were
essentially limitless relative to population.
Ample evidence now suggests that many
biophysical and geophysical limits are being
approached and the ideal world
development may be unattainable.
What causes this
development gap?
40000
Real World
30000
Global disease burden (M. Bonds)
20000
DALY=YYL+YLD
YYL years of life lost; YLD years lived with disability
0
10000
Per Capita Income
50000
GDP
0
.2
.4
Disease Burden (Dalys)
.6
Global distribution of DALYs
60
20
40
Most of the the world’s chronically ill
people are in the tropics
0
Latitude (Absolute Value)
Latitude
0
.2
.4
Dalys
.6
Malaria Ecology Index
Very low soil fertility
Soil fertility CGAIR
The Poverty Trap
A "any self-reinforcing mechanism which
causes poverty to persist.”
In a poor country you are very likely to
become ill – poverty leads to illness
Illness prevents you from working and
attending school – illness leads to poverty
Poverty Trap mechanisms include:
low access to credit and capital markets
weak institutions of governance,
corruption, capital flight, war, poor
infrastructure.
70
HDI lowest 40%
HDI middle 40%
HDI highest 20%
Latitude
(negative indicates South)
50
30
10
-10
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
-30
-50
-70
HDI (1980-2000)
0.8
1.0
The worlds climate zones are more or less temperature zones
Climate zones are controlled by the largescale circulation of the atmosphere
Polar cell
Ferrell cell
Hadley cell
Deserts here
Rain forests here
58
Large-scale circulation of the atmosphere
“determines” our welfare
Polar cell: impossible
Ferrell cell: wealthy
Hadley cell: poor
Climate zones are (almost) rainfall zones
60
Agro-ecological zones
Does this say that aggressive appropriation of
energy assets is needed for growth?
World coal production
World coal proven reserves
Carbon dioxide
per capita 2002
Ecological debtors and creditors
>50% in
debt
> 50% in credit
Is aggressive appropriation
of the biosphere necessary
for development or a
consequence of it?
Is wealth or poverty the greatest threat to
biodiversity loss?
The developing world cannot catch
up to the top billion along the
pathway that got us here without
very alarming consequences for the
future of the planet.
Nor can the top billion having taken
one pathway to prosperity continue
along the same pathway without very
alarming consequences for the future
of the planet.
Is this the only way
development
can happen?
Some measure of prosperity
Some measure of
use of natural capital
What is this graph telling us?
Ideal green spot
Some measure of prosperity
Some measure of use
of natural capital
What is this graph telling us?
Some measure of use of
natural capital
What is this graph telling us?
Some measure of prosperity
“Are our dealings with nature sustainable?
Can we expect world economic growth to
continue for the foreseeable future? Should
we be confident that our knowledge and
skills will increase in ways that will lessen
our reliance on nature despite our growing
numbers and rising economic activity?”
Sir Partha Dasgupta