Volume 2

Global climate change and sustainable development : third report of Session 2001-02 / International Development Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. International Development Committee.
Date:
2002
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Global climate change and sustainable development : third report of Session 2001-02 / International Development Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/180
    MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE TUESDAY 15 JANUARY 2002 Members present: Tony Baldry, in the Chair Mr John Battle Mr Piara S Khabra Hugh Bayley Mr Andrew Robathan Mr Tony Colman Tony Worthington Memorandum submitted by the Department for International Development EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The memorandum considers why it has proved difficult to adequately account for environmental issues in the wider sustainable development debate; sets out the new thinking which links poverty reduction and actions to achieve the Millennium Development Goals with more sustainable use of environmental resources; and sets out in summary terms the likely impact of climate change, particularly on the poor in developing countries. The memorandum concludes that incorporation of the environmental component of sustainable development is central to lasting poverty reduction; climate change is just one of many environmental factors that impact on the lives of poor people; and that continued uncertainty about its precise impacts indicates the need for pragmatic adaptation measures which respond positively to existing environmental pressures and climatic variability. INTRODUCTION 1. The effects and impacts of climate change are a sub-set of the wider issue of the integration of environmental issues into the policies and programmes of DFID and its country partners, together with those of other bilateral and multilateral development agencies. The Globalisation White Paper contains an overall commitment to “equitable and environmentally sustainable growth”. The challenge is to translate this into effective action on the ground. ENVIRONMENTAL MAINSTREAMING 2. The UK definition of sustainable development is “a better quality of life for everyone, now. and for generations to come”. Sustainable development is often interpreted as being only about the environment. We prefer to see it as taking account in a balanced way of social, economic and environmental aspects of development. 3. Within the totality of sustainable development, it is however true that environmental concerns are often marginalised in practice. The failure to adequately and appropriately incorporate environment into sustainable development reflects governance/institutional, market and policy failures: (a) governance/institutional failures — failures to integrate environment issues into poverty and development planning processes; — corruption and lack of transparency by governments; — weakness of environment ministries; — lack of incentives for individuals and government departments to work across institutional boundaries to deal with cross-cutting issues such as the environment, particularly where they perceive this will make their life more complicated; — the exclusive association of environment with environmental protection per se (b) market failures — insecure ownership of, or open access to, resources reduces the incentive to invest in their maintenance; — externalities means that where a producer can shift the effects of pollution onto others, there is little incentive to limit the polluting activity; — our knowledge of many ecological processes and of our effects on them is still weak and may never be fully reliable;