Climate Change Has Changed The Way We Understand Economic Growth And Development

“The primary concern is that a world of over six billion people striving materialistic satisfaction is drawing ever more heavily from finite supplies of natural resources to fuel an economic growth model destined to lead to an ecological disaster and global poverty without precedence” (Harder and Harder 1). As Harder and Harder explain, we must find an economic way of life that is economically stable. There are many different perspectives that view economic growth in different aspects. Advocates of economic growth have a very optimistic viewpoint about the future of economic growth. “Their operational logic reflects their sense of duty to develop latent resources into their actualized state for the benefit of a global

The evidence of climate change in Kenya is undeniable, while its effects on economic growth are no more mysterious; rather, they are rapidly unfolding to a startling reality and concern for humanity. Accelerated emissions of green house gases (GHGs) globally, from combustion of fossil fuels and unsustainable land use practices is the key driver of anthropogenic climate change, which is manifested in; temperature variations, frequent and extensive droughts, intensive rainfalls and floods, seasonal and regional pest and disease prevalence that result to conflicts for pasture and water resources,

While industrialization has been strongly associated with greenhouse gas emissions, it is premature, however, to conclude that economic growth is the independent factor responsible to climate change. Neumayer (1998) contended that there is no sound scientific evidence documenting consequences of economic development on the environmental degradation in the long term (p. 4). There is also no linear association between economic growth and environmental deterioration, as maintained by Ferguson et al. (1996, p. 28) that the existing evidence “cannot be used to justify a view that economic growth (…) will automatically be good or bad for the environment” (cited in Neumayer 1998, p. 16).

Important advantages of Resources on the Earth are limited.That the way we behave now does not make life difficult or impossible for future generations.To achieve sustainable development,we need to carefully consider the need for economic development,where standards of living improve

I analyzed the various complexities of this issue. One complexity was that combatting climate change becomes a point of contention when different countries have different levels of consumption. The second complexity was that climate change isn’t the primary concern of all countries even though it underlies conflicts in many parts of world. The last complexity is that while Global North countries have the greatest capacity to adapt to climate change, the rates of consumption and emissions were historically higher than countries in the Global South who have contributed the least to emissions but will be more negatively impacted by climate change and other environmental

‘What development means depends on how the rich nations feel, ‘Environment’ is no exception to this rule’. (Sachs, 1992, p.26)

The concept of ‘sustainable development’ is one that has faced heated debates for decades now. A seemingly harmless concept, it raises a lot of questions as to what it really entails and how exactly it can be achieved. But with more than 1.3 billion people living in abject poverty (less than $1.25 a day), and with a reported 22,000 children dying every day as a result of poverty (UNICEF), the debate for Sustainable Development becomes interesting as it questions the extremity of economic growth policies, in the war against poverty. Many note economic growth and development as the only tool for poverty alleviation. Roemer and Gugerty, for example, report that GDP growth of 10% per year is associated with income growth of 10% for the poorest 40% of the population. However, others question the extent to which economic growth should be put above other socio-economic factors. Lele points out that the focus on economic growth has led to important ecological and social sustainability, taking the backseat. He argues that due to strong emphasis on economic growth, not enough attention is paid to social equity, and economic stability within the development discourse.

Oscar Wilde once said, “We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell” (Wilde 2015). In other worlds, we bring upon ourselves our own demons, and it is usually not until after the damage is done that when even notice how much damage has been done. Climate change is one of these demons we face, created by our own ambition and our own societal progression. Spanning from the beginning of human civilization, but gaining a tremendous intensity from the occurrence of the industrialization, climate change is a threat to all of us. “Global atmospheric concentrations of GHGs have increased rapidly since the beginning of industrialization and now far exceed pre-industrial values as a result of human activities” (Zhang 2009). Every country, every nation, and every person, will, and is, effected by climate change. So what do we do? What we do is fight, with the development of more environment friendly technologies and ways of life. That being said, while every nation agrees that global climate change is a battle we must all face together, there is a great debate as to who should be responsible to lead the fight in the battle we have created. The debate going is between developed and undeveloped countries, in regard to whether developed countries should be responsible for funding climate sustaining development in undeveloped

The World Trade Organization, or WTO for short, has tried to promote sustainability and development of third world countries without damaging the environment (WTO). They claim that connecting these countries to the global economy will not directly cause damage to the environment, and that their programs, such as the Doha Declaration, help protect the environment (WTO). This, however, is far from the truth. The WTO regulates regional trade agreements such aslike the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which have authorized participating countries to ignore federal environmental laws (Nat’l Geographic). This goes directly against the claims the WTO have made, yet the WTO themselves have allowed the agreement. This will nullify any law a participating country passes if

Access to information is the key for improvement. For example, our consumption of the world’s resources is arguably becoming unsustainable, and this can be proven plausible with a change in the climate. One may ask, exactly how is climate change related to consumption? This type of information is only one of the things a climate change broker can help with.

Overtime there has been an increasing discussion talked about by respectable individuals to thriving nations of climate change. Concerns of Climate Changes affects to social development, such as human health, security and economy, changes that prohibit people to effectively work and earn,changes that makes food and water scarce and unavailable to under-developed countries, changes that will increase disease and mortality rates, countries becoming either desperate or aggressive for more and new resources to meet the demands of their population, creating wars for food and water, inevitably destroying the landscape and wildlife with their weapons of warfare which would directly affect the population, all to keep normality a little longer, over common everyday things that we are a accustomed to today, such as food, clean water, medicine and miscellaneous things. Yet we will inevitably run out and will begin to riot, protest, loot and pillage to survive.

The Kuznets curve is firstly introduced in 1955 by Kuznets as an inverted-U relationship between income inequality and economic development. Later it is found that the Kuznets curve is useful for describing the relationship between environmental pressure and the economic growth or known as the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) (Dinda, 2004). The hypothesis of the EKC is that at early stages of a country’s development, the quality of its environment will be deteriorated faster and getting slow down at some level of income per capita that the economic growth support the increasing of environmental performance (Stern, 2004). The EKC applies differently between countries depend on the economic growth status of the country. This essay will discuss the different appearance of the EKC using the evidences from developing and developed countries. The EKC of developing countries will show the upward slope stage of the curve because of the countries’ focus on economic growth and less protection to the environment. Conversely, the developed countries will show the later downward slope stage of the EKC as their economic growth is already high and there is more attention for environmental protection.

Intro: This report will aim to define responsible business, in relation to the vast range of topics such as Corporate social Responsibility/Corporate Citizenship, sustainability, whilst comparing these through academia and their different meanings relating to Responsible Business. Furthermore, this report will also aim to critically analyse climate change and its effect in relation to making Business more responsible as well as the drawbacks/opportunities this holds for business. Finally, this report will exploit the relation between government and Business; identify possible barriers for businesses through government via academic views and evidential impacts on businesses and how government supports business to create a more sustainable world, through incentives such as the climate change Act 2008.

Barring only a handful of old people represented by a red elephant, climate change is recognized as the most pressing contemporary environmental issue. In fact, there is an endless stream of studies and research articles published daily about climate change and the eventual effects it will have on human civilization. For the purposes of simplicity, I’m going to take the most extreme stance and say unchecked pollution-induced climate change will result in a combination of polar icecap melting and ozone depletion which will cause a permanent winter. Obviously, there is debate amongst climatologists to the extent of the devastation that climate change will have on humanity, but I’ll ignore those for the sake of this topic. Let’s assume the

Presently, changes are being experienced in areas where development projects aimed at improving the economic and social status of a region are being carried. These changes happen to affect the environment within which the projects are being carried and they often call for strategies to be developed by the developing body to make sure that these impacts are reduced significantly (Beer, Au and Hall n.d.). Despite different development projects aiming at bringing about some positive changes in the society or in a given setting, studies show that the same projects may lead to conflicts between the environment and the human activities being carried out in that particular region. Initially, the campaign for economic growth was viewed as the key for increasing the standards of living in a given region but very little attention was given to the social and environmental sensitivity and impacts that accompanied these projects (Chen, Liu and Liaw 2011). As a result, there has been a growing need to reduce the impacts of the projects as well as making sure that the long term benefits of the projects are maximized in leading to sustainability of the projects.