The Sustainable Development Goals ("SDGs") have increasingly come onto my radar in recent weeks, whether in the news, magazines or at the 'Battle of Ideas'. I have become aware of different opinions about their effectiveness, which I intend to outline in this post with the aim to coming to my own conclusions.
The SDGs are a replacement for the Millennium Development Goals ("MDGs") of 2000-2015, which had a main thrust towards reducing poverty. One argument for the need for the SDGs is the (debatable) success of the MDGs. It has been said that the MDGs have led to the most successful anti-poverty movement in history, with extreme poverty, child mortality and the number of people without access to water more than halving. Many people argue that the MDGs demonstrate the value of the goals system, and that the SDGs must now complete the mission that the MDGs began.
Arguably, the new set of goals should have the potential to be even more effective since errors of the MDGs can be identified and amended. There is evidence of this having been done. Firstly, since the MDGs were felt by many not to incorporate the views of the developing countries or to reflect the development discussions at the time, the working group for the SDGs was comprised of 69 countries, 11 of which are from Africa. In addition, the 'My World' survey of 7 million people in remote villages to identify their needs was used in decision making. The involvement of developing nations in the construction of the goals should lead to reduced cynicism and pessimism in these countries. Also, the MDGs were criticised for a lack of focus on underlying issues, for example those exacerbating poverty, so the SDGs integrated factors such as inequality and infrastructure. This will hopefully mean that the alleviation of poverty is more sustainable, so the alleviated are at less risk of falling below the poverty line again. Linking to this sustainability aspect, an important issue addressed in the SDGs, but not the MDGs, is the environment. They make connections between the environment and development, which some would say puts to rest the misconception that 'sustainable development' is an antithesis. It is suggested that this can be done, for example, by encouraging TNCs to adopt sustainable practices and rationalising inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Professor Miles Wickstead said at the 'Battle of Ideas' that these goals may be our last chance for people and planet to work together.
However, some people feel that the transition from MDGs to SDGs has been one with negative consequences, and also that some of the major issues with the MDGs have not been addressed by the SDGs. One topic of note is the definition of extreme poverty as having an income of less than $1/day. Although this figure has now been adjusted to $1.90, it is still considered too low by many, with studies showing that an income closer to $5/day is needed to have a chance of a normal life expectancy and of basic needs being met. The use of this figure also exaggerates the progress made by the MDGs, with the reduction of people living on less than $2/day being only 15% since 1981, with 61% of people in the developing world still living on less than $4/day.
This issue highlights a problem with goal-orientated measures. With the focus of governments on lifting people above the extreme poverty income, once this has been achieved the people are effectively ignored, even if they are only one cent above the poverty line. Evidently, these people hovering above the poverty line are still impoverished so although the goal has been met on paper, in reality it has not. Another goal-related issue made worse by the SDGs is the fear that, with 169 goals in total, the concept of many priorities meaning no priorities will come into play. Of particular concern is the potential for the dilution of the focus on poverty. Also, with the SDGs being more specific they may become less effective, since local context is important.
With the MDGs, national governments were able to draw up national plans on how the goals would be implemented to solve the issues most acute in their respective countries in the ways they feel would be most effectual. This degree of tailoring may no longer be possible. Although for some goals this level of international control is beneficial, such as the eradication of global diseases and mitigation of climate change, other goals would be much more effective if more power was given to local governments.
Anthropologist Jason Hickel also argues that the Sustainable Development Goals are unlikely to be successful. In his article, 'The Problem with Saving the World', he writes that the goals are "profoundly contradictory, to the point of being self-defeating". This is firstly the case with the goals of sustainable growth. Whilst targets such as an end to the loss of biodiversity and the restriction of global warming to 2ºC exist, so do targets such as 7% annual GDP growth in least developed countries and higher levels of economic productivity globally. However, the current method of achieving economic growth is based on increased production and consumption due to the prevalence of capitalism, and our production and consumption levels at the moment exceed earth's capacity by 50% each year. Evidently, the capitalist structure of our economy needs to change in order to achieve sustainable growth; reducing food waste and making resource use more efficient will not suffice.
Linked to this point, the SDGs propose income growth of the bottom 40% of the population at a rate higher than the average as a solution to reducing inequality and poverty. But if this was achieved and the developing countries reached the GDP of the average high-income country, then 3.4 earths would be required to sustain the associated level of production and consumption. Therefore, although the SDGs are often praised for addressing the root causes of poverty (as seen in the third paragraph), this is essentially false. Largely, the reason for this neglect of capitalism within the goals is the significant role of corporations in the SDG process. For example, the corporate sector and the UN will be working together to increase funding for the achievement of the goals. Overall, Hickel argues that the SDGs are "dangerous" since they will cause the global focus for the next 15 years to be focussed on an agenda that does not solve our pertinent issues, but in fact exacerbates them.
You may be questioning at this point why, if the MDGs were so successful, the SDGs have so many negative feelings about their potential success. After all, improvements have been made and many of the issues associated with the SDGs were also existent in the MDGs. Well, the answer is that there is debate about whether the MDGs were actually the cause of the considerable progress made within the time of their implementation. It is commonly thought that much of the progress was a by-product of economic growth in China. An article in the Economist mentions that China is responsible for the achievement of three-quarters of the poverty reduction. However, China's growth is slowing and its experience is unlikely to be replicated in India and Africa due to poorer governance. Also, following Hickel's line of argument, it seems wrong to call this poverty reduction a success due to the unsustainability of the economic growth linked to capitalism.
Before reading Jason Hickel's article, my opinion was that we do need the Sustainable Development Goals because they cause governments worldwide to focus on issues that matter for the progression of our world in coming years. Even if the goals are not legally binding (which in some ways can be seen as beneficial since it can allow the degree of tailoring mentioned in the sixth paragraph leading to more effective policies on a local scale), they cause beneficial strategies to be translated into policies within countries largely as a means to gain or maintain respect between nations. For example, the SDGs now include inequality reduction which may counter the effect of the slowing economic growth of China, since economic growth has a much greater impact on poverty reduction in an equal society.
Hickel caused me to question this viewpoint since, from what he argues, it appears that in order for sustainable development to be achieved capitalism must go, and since the SDGs do not attempt to combat capitalism they will detrimentally limit any chance of governments focussing on this. However, perhaps the SDGs are, in fact, encouraging a move from capitalism. The rise of the Collaborative Commons threatens the reign of capitalism, and it is fueled mostly by the emerging technology platform, which makes up multiple goals of the SDGs, like many in section 9. This new system involves the reduction of marginal costs to almost zero, to trigger a sharing economy with universal access to and inclusion in the 'Internet of Things'. It reduces the drive for production and consumption that characterises capitalism and thus is transforming the dream of 'rags-to-riches' into the dream of a sustainable quality of life. Therefore, the goals may not be as contradictory as Hickel suggests, so I would argue that yes...we do need Sustainable Development Goals.
Friday 30 October 2015
Wednesday 30 September 2015
RGS lecture on inequality
Last week, a group of upper sixth geographers visited the Royal Geographical Society to watch a lecture entitled 'Not just economics - what we know about why social inequality persists and its possible consequences'. The lecture was given by Professor Danny Dorling of Oxford University, whose achievements include founding the cartogram website 'Worldmapper'.
Worldwide, Dorling said, the top 1% have 50% of the wealth. This is increasing at 7% per year so that in 7 years time the rich will earn essentially everything.
Later on in the lecture he addressed why this is a problematic development. Firstly, with high inequality comes less trust. One simply has to watch the period dramas currently being aired by the BBC such as Lady Chatterly's Lover and the Go-Between to see the level of fear that many upper class families had towards the working class, and the despair they felt at the thought of inter-class marriages. Also, in unequal societies people learn less well. Due to many people doing well in exams, for example those in private schools in the UK, there is more competition for the rest of society so exam results matter more. Therefore, instead of the focus in lessons being on understanding and interest in the subject, it is on how to pass or excel in exams (which doesn't always demand full understanding). Equal societies are also better than unequal ones at planning things on local or national scales. The housing and transport systems are often better in equal countries, possibly because they have fewer other worries.
Dorling also drew links, although sometimes tenuous, between characteristics generally conceived as 'bad' and inequality. For example, more unequal countries tend to have more obesity and higher water consumption and tend to emit more carbon dioxide and have higher infant mortality rates. This can perhaps be connected to the poorer planning in unequal countries: they may not have effective healthcare systems or initiatives to encourage lower emissions and water use.
From my own reading about the viewpoint that there is no such thing as a natural disaster I can say that another impact of inequality, for example within New Orleans, is the escalation of a natural hazard into a detrimental natural disaster. When Hurricane Katrina struck the city in 2005, the poor were vulnerable to the flooding due to a correlation in New Orleans between class and topographic location, with the poorer citizens being in the lower land at greater risk of flooding. Also, the rich had cars to evacuate, money for emergency hotels and supplies and insurance policies for rebuilding. This inequality contributed to the catastrophic impacts which caused the hurricane to be classed as a natural disaster.
Dorling additionally provided some explanation for the causes of inequality. A graph was shown that displayed how the share of total income in the UK that is received by the richest 1% has varied since 1918. The general trend was a decrease until the 1970s and an increase since then. He attributed the decrease to increased tax on the rich during world wars one and two and the Russian revolution scaring the rich due to killings of the wealthy there. It then returned to high levels due to the UK society being innately unequal because of the class system and aristocracy and because the UK won the world wars.
In contrast, Japan and Germany have relatively little inequality because they lost WWII. The USA then divided up Japanese land equally to avoid revolution, with tenant farmers benefitting and the power of rich landowners being reduced (as many of them advocated war and Japanese expansionism), and also downgraded the emperor's status and promoted greater rights for women. In Germany, the UK tried to increase equality by preventing successful cities from becoming more successful, for example by building the Berlin Wall, and by increasing the success of less successful cities. Attempts were made to convert Germany into a more pastoral and agricultural nation, with many factories being dismantled so only light industry was permitted.
The point was also made that poorer countries tend to have more inequality. This is because there is a higher level of poverty, prevalent now due to high levels of urbanisation, and because there is often no effective taxation system to prevent money hoarding.
Overall, this lecture interested us all by causing us to look at inequality not just in terms of the economy but also in terms of society and, in some cases, the environment. It will be of use to us when we undertake the development course as part of our A-Level next term.
Worldwide, Dorling said, the top 1% have 50% of the wealth. This is increasing at 7% per year so that in 7 years time the rich will earn essentially everything.
Later on in the lecture he addressed why this is a problematic development. Firstly, with high inequality comes less trust. One simply has to watch the period dramas currently being aired by the BBC such as Lady Chatterly's Lover and the Go-Between to see the level of fear that many upper class families had towards the working class, and the despair they felt at the thought of inter-class marriages. Also, in unequal societies people learn less well. Due to many people doing well in exams, for example those in private schools in the UK, there is more competition for the rest of society so exam results matter more. Therefore, instead of the focus in lessons being on understanding and interest in the subject, it is on how to pass or excel in exams (which doesn't always demand full understanding). Equal societies are also better than unequal ones at planning things on local or national scales. The housing and transport systems are often better in equal countries, possibly because they have fewer other worries.
Dorling also drew links, although sometimes tenuous, between characteristics generally conceived as 'bad' and inequality. For example, more unequal countries tend to have more obesity and higher water consumption and tend to emit more carbon dioxide and have higher infant mortality rates. This can perhaps be connected to the poorer planning in unequal countries: they may not have effective healthcare systems or initiatives to encourage lower emissions and water use.
From my own reading about the viewpoint that there is no such thing as a natural disaster I can say that another impact of inequality, for example within New Orleans, is the escalation of a natural hazard into a detrimental natural disaster. When Hurricane Katrina struck the city in 2005, the poor were vulnerable to the flooding due to a correlation in New Orleans between class and topographic location, with the poorer citizens being in the lower land at greater risk of flooding. Also, the rich had cars to evacuate, money for emergency hotels and supplies and insurance policies for rebuilding. This inequality contributed to the catastrophic impacts which caused the hurricane to be classed as a natural disaster.
Dorling additionally provided some explanation for the causes of inequality. A graph was shown that displayed how the share of total income in the UK that is received by the richest 1% has varied since 1918. The general trend was a decrease until the 1970s and an increase since then. He attributed the decrease to increased tax on the rich during world wars one and two and the Russian revolution scaring the rich due to killings of the wealthy there. It then returned to high levels due to the UK society being innately unequal because of the class system and aristocracy and because the UK won the world wars.
In contrast, Japan and Germany have relatively little inequality because they lost WWII. The USA then divided up Japanese land equally to avoid revolution, with tenant farmers benefitting and the power of rich landowners being reduced (as many of them advocated war and Japanese expansionism), and also downgraded the emperor's status and promoted greater rights for women. In Germany, the UK tried to increase equality by preventing successful cities from becoming more successful, for example by building the Berlin Wall, and by increasing the success of less successful cities. Attempts were made to convert Germany into a more pastoral and agricultural nation, with many factories being dismantled so only light industry was permitted.
The point was also made that poorer countries tend to have more inequality. This is because there is a higher level of poverty, prevalent now due to high levels of urbanisation, and because there is often no effective taxation system to prevent money hoarding.
Overall, this lecture interested us all by causing us to look at inequality not just in terms of the economy but also in terms of society and, in some cases, the environment. It will be of use to us when we undertake the development course as part of our A-Level next term.
Saturday 22 August 2015
Is there such thing as a natural disaster?
I recently came across the proposition, accepted by most environmental geographers, that there is no such thing as a natural disaster. This proposition is largely based on the view that a natural hazard only becomes a disaster as a result of human exposure, vulnerability and poor management.
In order to form my own opinion about this topic, I decided I must first find what a disaster is considered to be. The obvious condition for an event to be considered a disaster is deaths, and the Bradford disaster scale does rank the magnitude of a disaster by the number of deaths. However, Horlick-Jones and Peters point out that fatalities are only one aspect of a disaster, and they are not a necessary condition. This leads to the definition put forward in 1990 by FEMA: "an occurrence that has resulted in property damage, deaths, and/or injuries to a community." But this begs the question of how severe the damage or how numerous the casualties must be. Multiple different sources agree that an event can be considered a disaster when the impact upon the people or area leads to external assistance being needed for the society to cope.
This definition suggests that whether a natural hazard becomes a disaster is determined by societies themselves because their level of susceptibility to harm, as well as effectiveness of response to it, determines whether they can cope without external assistance.
The increased human exposure and vulnerability to natural hazards can be used to partly explain the increase in reported natural disasters in recent decades, shown by the graph below. Although some of the increase may be due to improved reporting and communications, it is thought that two-thirds of the increase is actually due to a rise in the number of natural disasters.
Due to the recent growths in population and the economy, more people and more money are at risk. This is especially the case in urban areas with high population densities and economic assets, often growing too fast for safety regulations to keep up.
Especially significant growths are those along the coastline and on floodplains, which cause more people and infrastructure to be at risk from natural hazards such as floods and tsunamis. The number of people and total GDP exposed to flooding alone increased by 28% and 98% respectively from 1990-2007. Coastline development can also lead to the depletion of mangrove forests, which provide natural protection from tsunamis by slowing their flow rate by up to 90%, thus increasing the exposure of the populations further. Floodplain development can increase the risk of flooding occurring due to factors such as increased surface run off. Similarly, the need for more land for farming and housing has led to deforestation, which can be a factor in creating hazards such as floods and landslides.
Another explanation for the rise in the number of natural disasters is global warming, attributed to human action, increasing the number of natural hazards such as hurricanes, floods and droughts.
The decline in the past decade in the number of natural disasters is thought to be due to the improvement in preparedness for and response to natural hazards. The impact of this can be shown by the different impacts of Hurricane Ivan in 2004. When it hit Florida and Grenada, 27 and 100 people died respectively. However, when it hit Cuba, which has many different policies that reduce the threat of hurricanes, there were no deaths. In 1976, an earthquake killed 23,000 people in Guatemala. The majority of these deaths were not the direct result of the earthquake, but occurred in the days that followed due to aid not being sent to affected and needy people.
Therefore, natural hazards become disasters due to the presence of humans and their infrastructure in affected areas as well as insufficient preparation and response by humans. Humans can also create hazards that may become disasters, or increase the risk of them occurring. The impact of human actions leading to the creation of a natural disaster is shown by the disaster risk equation:
Based upon the points above, I would suggest that humans have influence upon all three factors that lead to a disaster occurring and thus there is no such thing as a 'natural' disaster.
However, there is some logic in this argument that I find hard to grasp. Since humans are animals and animals are components of nature, does this mean that humans are components of nature? If so, the argument that natural disasters are not natural because humans are present in an area affected by a natural hazard seems invalid. I can see that a rebuttal to this could be that it is the human infrastructure that is not natural. This I do not entirely accept either. Our infrastructure is created from natural components and the desire to want shelter and comfort is natural. If our infrastructure is not natural, surely this means that termite nests and bee hives are not natural either. Using this thought process, my conclusion would be that there is such thing as a natural disaster but they would not be disasters without the presence or influence of humans.
Ella Witts
In order to form my own opinion about this topic, I decided I must first find what a disaster is considered to be. The obvious condition for an event to be considered a disaster is deaths, and the Bradford disaster scale does rank the magnitude of a disaster by the number of deaths. However, Horlick-Jones and Peters point out that fatalities are only one aspect of a disaster, and they are not a necessary condition. This leads to the definition put forward in 1990 by FEMA: "an occurrence that has resulted in property damage, deaths, and/or injuries to a community." But this begs the question of how severe the damage or how numerous the casualties must be. Multiple different sources agree that an event can be considered a disaster when the impact upon the people or area leads to external assistance being needed for the society to cope.
This definition suggests that whether a natural hazard becomes a disaster is determined by societies themselves because their level of susceptibility to harm, as well as effectiveness of response to it, determines whether they can cope without external assistance.
The increased human exposure and vulnerability to natural hazards can be used to partly explain the increase in reported natural disasters in recent decades, shown by the graph below. Although some of the increase may be due to improved reporting and communications, it is thought that two-thirds of the increase is actually due to a rise in the number of natural disasters.
Especially significant growths are those along the coastline and on floodplains, which cause more people and infrastructure to be at risk from natural hazards such as floods and tsunamis. The number of people and total GDP exposed to flooding alone increased by 28% and 98% respectively from 1990-2007. Coastline development can also lead to the depletion of mangrove forests, which provide natural protection from tsunamis by slowing their flow rate by up to 90%, thus increasing the exposure of the populations further. Floodplain development can increase the risk of flooding occurring due to factors such as increased surface run off. Similarly, the need for more land for farming and housing has led to deforestation, which can be a factor in creating hazards such as floods and landslides.
Another explanation for the rise in the number of natural disasters is global warming, attributed to human action, increasing the number of natural hazards such as hurricanes, floods and droughts.
The decline in the past decade in the number of natural disasters is thought to be due to the improvement in preparedness for and response to natural hazards. The impact of this can be shown by the different impacts of Hurricane Ivan in 2004. When it hit Florida and Grenada, 27 and 100 people died respectively. However, when it hit Cuba, which has many different policies that reduce the threat of hurricanes, there were no deaths. In 1976, an earthquake killed 23,000 people in Guatemala. The majority of these deaths were not the direct result of the earthquake, but occurred in the days that followed due to aid not being sent to affected and needy people.
Therefore, natural hazards become disasters due to the presence of humans and their infrastructure in affected areas as well as insufficient preparation and response by humans. Humans can also create hazards that may become disasters, or increase the risk of them occurring. The impact of human actions leading to the creation of a natural disaster is shown by the disaster risk equation:
However, there is some logic in this argument that I find hard to grasp. Since humans are animals and animals are components of nature, does this mean that humans are components of nature? If so, the argument that natural disasters are not natural because humans are present in an area affected by a natural hazard seems invalid. I can see that a rebuttal to this could be that it is the human infrastructure that is not natural. This I do not entirely accept either. Our infrastructure is created from natural components and the desire to want shelter and comfort is natural. If our infrastructure is not natural, surely this means that termite nests and bee hives are not natural either. Using this thought process, my conclusion would be that there is such thing as a natural disaster but they would not be disasters without the presence or influence of humans.
Ella Witts
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