Development and Environment: Sustainable Development, MDGs and SDGs

Economic growth means a rise in output or income, usually measured by GDP, while development is a wider idea that includes health, education, equity, freedom and the quality of the environment. The central question of this topic is whether a society can keep improving human well-being without destroying the natural base that supports it. For a long time the answer was assumed to be yes, because resources looked unlimited. The Club of Rome report Limits to Growth (1972) challenged that belief by arguing that exponential growth on a finite planet must eventually overshoot, and the same year the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment put environment on the international agenda for the first time and led to the creation of UNEP.

The idea of sustainable development was given its classic definition in Our Common Future (1987), the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland. It defines sustainable development as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Two ideas sit inside this definition: the concept of needs, especially the essential needs of the world's poor, and the idea of limitations imposed by technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs. Sustainability is therefore built on intergenerational equity (fairness between generations) and intragenerational equity (fairness within the present generation, between rich and poor and between countries).

Sustainable development is usually shown as three interlinked pillars: economic, social and environmental. The business version of this is John Elkington's triple bottom line (people, planet, profit). Economists separate weak sustainability, which assumes that man-made capital can substitute for natural capital as long as total capital does not fall, from strong sustainability, which holds that some natural capital (such as the ozone layer, climate stability or biodiversity) is critical and cannot be replaced by machines or money. The Environmental Kuznets Curve proposes that pollution first rises and then falls as income grows, giving an inverted U; critics note that it holds for some local pollutants such as sulphur dioxide but not for carbon dioxide or biodiversity loss. The ecological footprint (Wackernagel and Rees) measures the biologically productive area needed to support a population's consumption and absorb its waste, and planetary boundaries (Johan Rockstrom and colleagues) define safe operating limits for Earth-system processes such as climate change, biosphere integrity and nitrogen cycles. Doughnut Economics (Kate Raworth) places a social foundation below and an ecological ceiling above, with the safe and just space for humanity between them. Bhutan's Gross National Happiness is an example of a development philosophy that does not rely on GDP alone, and the Human Development Index (Mahbub ul Haq, 1990, published by UNDP) combines health, education and standard of living.

The MDGs were drawn from the Millennium Declaration adopted at the Millennium Summit in 2000 and had 8 goals, 21 targets and about 60 indicators. The target year was 2015 and 1990 was the baseline for measuring progress.

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (halve the share of people living on less than \$1.25 a day, earlier stated as \$1 a day)

2. Achieve universal primary education (every child able to complete a full course of primary schooling)

3. Promote gender equality and empower women (eliminate gender disparity in education, preferably by 2005 and at all levels by 2015)

4. Reduce child mortality (cut the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds)

5. Improve maternal health (cut the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters)

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

7. Ensure environmental sustainability (including reducing biodiversity loss, safe drinking water and sanitation, and improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020)

8. Develop a global partnership for development

The SDGs are set out in the 2030 Agenda titled Transforming Our World. They have 17 goals, 169 targets and about 230 indicators, and they are universal, meaning they apply to all countries. The goals are: 1 No poverty; 2 Zero hunger; 3 Good health and well-being; 4 Quality education; 5 Gender equality; 6 Clean water and sanitation; 7 Affordable and clean energy; 8 Decent work and economic growth; 9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure; 10 Reduced inequalities; 11 Sustainable cities and communities; 12 Responsible consumption and production; 13 Climate action; 14 Life below water; 15 Life on land; 16 Peace, justice and strong institutions; 17 Partnerships for the goals.

The 2030 Agenda is organized around the five Ps: People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership. A quick way to remember the environmental SDGs is 6, 7, 12, 13, 14 and 15 (water, energy, consumption, climate, oceans and land), and the social-institutional ones are 1 to 5, 10 and 16.

Selected target numbers that appear in questions

• SDG 1: end extreme poverty (people living on less than \$1.25 a day in the original text) for everyone everywhere

• SDG 3: maternal mortality below 70 per 100,000 live births and under-five mortality at least as low as 25 per 1,000 live births, by 2030

• SDG 5: end child, early and forced marriage

• SDG 6: end open defecation (target 6.2); universal and equitable access to safe drinking water (target 6.1)

• SDG 7: substantially increase the share of renewable energy and double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency

• SDG 8: at least 7 per cent annual GDP growth in the least developed countries; end child labour in all its forms by 2025

• SDG 10: income growth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population

• SDG 12: halve per capita global food waste at retail and consumer level; rationalize inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies

• SDG 16: legal identity for all, including birth registration, by 2030

• SDG 17: developed countries to implement their official development assistance commitment of 0.7 per cent of gross national income

• Follow-up and review of the SDGs takes place at the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development under the UN Economic and Social Council; it replaced the Commission on Sustainable Development and countries present Voluntary National Reviews there

• The SDG Index and Dashboards report is published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN); the Human Development Report is published by UNDP; the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index is produced by OPHI and UNDP

• India's nodal body for the SDGs is NITI Aayog, which launched the SDG India Index in 2018 to rank states and union territories

• Schemes commonly linked to goals: Jal Jeevan Mission and Swachh Bharat Mission (SDG 6), Ujjwala Yojana (SDG 7), Ayushman Bharat (SDG 3), Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (SDG 5), Mission LiFE and Lifestyle for Environment (SDG 12), Aspirational Districts Programme (from 2018, several goals)

• Related 2015 frameworks: Sendai Framework (disaster risk), Addis Ababa Action Agenda (financing for development), New Urban Agenda (Habitat III, Quito, 2016)