Premium Gist of Yojana: September 2013
Contents
INTEGRATING SUSTAINABILITY INTO INDIAN PLANNING
India’s Attempts at integrating environmental sustainability
into economic planning have so far been piecemeal and hesitant. They have done
little to stem the rapid slide into ecological devastation and consequent
livelihood, cultural, and economic disruption. At the root of this lies the
stubborn adherence to a model of economic growth that is fundamentally
unsustainable and inequitable, even more so in its ‘globalised’ form in the last
two decades.
The 12th Plan process could have been an opportunity to
change course, especially given its explicit commitment to sustainability,
inclusiveness and equity. Indeed there are some glimpses of a different
approach, e.g. making economic activities more responsible in their use of
resources and in the wastes they produce, promoting urban water harvesting and
public transport, providing organic inputs to agriculture use, encouraging
recycling, making tourism more environmentally responsible and communitybased,
moving towards low-carbon strategies, and protecting the’ commons’ (lands and
waters that are used by the public), giving communities more secure rights to
use and manage these. Yet the Plan falls far short of significant reorientation,
mostly staying within the confines of assuming that more growth will help
achieve these goals. It does not use any available framework of ‘sustainable
development’, including the targets that India agreed to at the 2002 World
Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesberg). It does not contain indicators
to gauge whether India is moving towards sustainability, e.g.improvement in per
capita availability of natural forests, reduction in the levels of various kinds
of pollution, improved access to nutritious food and clean water, or enhanced
availability of public
transport. Environmental considerations do not yet permeate each economic
sector.
There is in fact a palpable lack of urgency with regard to
the ecological crisis we are already in. Natural ecosystems are under stress and
decline across most of the country; some 10% of the country’s wildlife is
threatened with extinction; agricultural biodiversity has declined by over 90%
in many regions; well over half the available water bodies are polluted beyond
drinking and often beyond even agricultural use; two-thirds of the land is
degraded to various levels of sub-optimal productivity; air pollution in several
cities is amongst the world’s worst; ‘modem’ wastes including electronic and
chemical are bring produced at rates far exceeding our capacity to recycle or
manage.
Annual Economic Surveys of Government of India, and the
Ministry of Environment and Forest’s annual State of Environment” reports
occasionally acknowledge the widespread environmental damage; more is found in
independent reports such as the State of India’s Environment reports by Centre
for Science and Environment. A 2008 report by the Global Footprint Network and
Confederation of Indian Industries suggests that India has the world’s third
biggest ecological footprint, that its resource use is already twice of its
bio-capacity, and that this bio-capacity itself has declined by half In the last
few decades.
Economic globalisation since 1991 has significantly increased
rates of diversion of natural ecosystems for ‘developmental’ purposes, and rates
of resource exploitation for domestic use and exports. Climate change impacts
are being felt in terms of erratic weather and coastal erosion, and the country
has little in the way of climate preparedness especially for the poor who will
be worst affected.
Projections based on the historic trend of materials and
energy use in India also point to serious levels of domestic and global impact
on the environment, if India continues it current development trajectory modeled
on already industrialized countries.
One opening provided by the 2013 Economic Survey towards
redressing the situation is the following paragraph: “From India’s point of
view, Sustainable Development Goals need to bring together development and
environment into a single set of targets. The fault line, as ever in global
conferences, is the inappropriate’ balance between environment and development.
.. we could also view the SDGs and the post 2015 agenda as an opportunity for
revisiting and fine-tuning the MDG framework and sustainably regaining focus on
developmental issues.”
Framed in 2000, the MDGs set ambitious targets for tackling
poverty, hunger, thirst, illiteracy, women’s exploitation, child mortality,
disease, and environmental destruction. They are supposed to have guided the
developmental and welfare policies and programmes of governments. Countries are
individually, and collectively through the United Nations, reviewing progress
made in achieving the MDGs. Simultaneously discussions have been initiated
towards new ‘development’ frameworks that could more effectively lead to human
well-being while ensuring ecological sustainability. India too needs to engage
in a full-scale review of its achievements (or failures), which can become an
opportunity to work out a new framework for the post-201S process, best suited
to Indian conditions. Here are some ideas on what such a framework could look
like.
Elements of a New Global Framework
A fundamentally different framework of well-being has to be
built on the tenets of ecological sustainability, as much as of equity. This is
clearly pointed to in the outcome document of the UN Conference on Sustainable
Development (‘Rio+20’) of 2012. A new set of global goals could include:
(1) Ensuring ecological conservation and resilience, and the basis of
equitable access to nature and natural resources to all peoples and communities
(respecting nature’s own rights) (an expansion of current MDG 7);
(2) Providing adequate and nutritious food for all, through production and
distribution systems that are ecologically sustainable and equitable (currently
part of MDG 1);
(3) Ensuring adequate and safe water for all, through harvesting and
distribution systems that are ecologically sustainable and equitable (currently
part of MDG 7);
(4) Safeguarding conditions for prevention of disease, and maintenance of
good health, for all, in ways that are ecologically sustainable and equitable
(currently partly in MDG 6)
(5) Providing equitable access to energy sources in ways that are
ecologically sustainable (as much as technically and economically viable)
(currently missing from the MDGs);
