Sustainable development and poverty alleviation in a global world

Résumé du document

Globalization is the process of integrating and opening market across national borders. The entire process of globalization is highly controversial, raising great concerns about national sovereignty, corporate responsibility and equity for the world's poorest people and the protection of environment. The protection of environment is put in jeopardy by the increasing economic development whose only goal is profitability, regardless of the environmental issues. The imperative of competing in the global market place forces governments to prioritize economic objectives at the expense of environmental protection. A majority of the environmental issues are alarming which include global warming, biodiversity, air and water pollution, natural resources exhaustion. Rich countries have reached an economic level where they can decrease their economic impact on environment.

Extraits

[...] A lack of full scientific certainties about some aspects of climate change is not a reason for delaying an immediate response. That is why we have to change our way of using fossil carbon if we want to save the planet for the next generations. The Kyoto Protocol does not take strong measures enough which could prevent a disaster. As nations and economies develop over the next 25 years, world energy demand is estimated to increase by around 60 per cent. [...]

[...] Cutting hunger remains a problem and there is no possibility of achieving food security for all by 2020 with business as usual. Much more food is consequently needed but the question remains how to produce it. Producing food is actually linked to water, as well as for cultivated crops as for meat production. That is why some issues are proposed, like the virtual water trading, which refers to the water needed for the production of products, according to the fact that grain production requires far less virtual water meat production. Food problem is thus linked to the ecological issue. [...]

[...] On the one hand, the Malthusians argue that global increase in food production rises slower than population increase. Crisis is consequently imminent. We know however that the population is not going to increase endlessly and that there are a lot of improvements which can help to improve the situation. For example, Amarty Son is more optimistic: there will be enough food if it is shared rightly and if agricultural improvements are launched to increase productivity. Food is in fact available but there is an unequal allocation and there is a difference between food availability and food accessibility. [...]

[...] Energy consumption has a strong impact on the environment. Earth is a system and each time we humans alter one part of it, there is a lot of consequences which we are not always aware of. The least modification of the natural world creates an uncontrolled chain reaction. The most well-known environmental issue is the global warming, linked to the greenhouse effect. The combustion of the fossil energy and the production of too much carbon dioxide are the most important causes of this process. [...]

[...] In Bangladesh alone, a zero point five sea level rise would place six million of people at risk of flooding. The poorest will moreover suffer the most from the climate change. Although the spread of infectious diseases is multi causal, global change may be a major contributor. As important as global warming may be to human health, the effects of the extreme weather that accompany global warming may be even more profound. Volatility of infectious diseases may be one of the earliest biological expressions of climate instability. [...]