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An Eventful
Quarter Century
Ashok Khosla
The past twenty five years have, in many ways, been truly
remarkable. We have witnessed long-standing geopolitical equations
turned upside down, creating new alliances among former enemies but
also new instabilities in the existing structures of power.
Economic systems have been torn inside out, bringing in great
prosperity for some and untold misery to others. Technologies and
production methods have been transmuted back to front, bringing the
benefits of the gene and the silicon chip directly into our lives,
but often taking the security and dignity of our livelihoods and
workplaces out.
An
eventful quarter century also remarkable for the fact that those who
have and those who do not both grew in numbers. In fact, in large
numbers.
But what future generations will, I believe, remember this period
for is the renewal of interest in an age-old philosophy of living in
harmony with the rest of creation. This philosophy, for some
centuries forgotten - at least in the West - may well lead to the
crucial societal commitments that can make the future possible. It
is hard to recall any quarter century in history during which our
existing ideas and perceptions of the relationship between people
and nature have undergone so thoroughgoing a change. I would like
to call it a revolution, but that will have to wait until it is more
widely accepted. Yet, this period is quite unique in that we have
to confront, in so short a time, such fundamental issues of survival
and social purpose and devise the profound transformations needed.
The Stockholm Conference of 1972 was certainly the first major
international milestone on this road to a better and more
sustainable world. The prime movers of the conference, many of them
present here today, recognised that the existing mind-set of our
economies, which was to “mine and plunder the Earth’s resources, and
everyone will in due course benefit” could not be the basis of human
well-being in the long run. They reject this - well, shall we call
it - mine-set, largely on the grounds of resource and carrying
capacity limits and irreversible environmental damage, and set in
motion the process to bring such concerns into the centre stage of
national and international policy making .
But the participants at Stockholm were primarily governments, and
managing the environment needed many others as well: scientists,
engineers, business and of course the whole civil society. And,
over the next twenty years, the emerging threats to the
stratospheric ozone shield, the global climate gene pool of the
biosphere led us to recognise that it was not only the relationship
of people with nature but also that between the people and machines
that needs urgently to be redesigned. At the same time it had
become obvious to those who think about these things
dispassionately that an inequitable world like ours is no more
sustainable than one whose environment has been destroyed. This, as
you all remember, led to the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro where we
had to deal with the second of the self-destructive mine-sets that
has guided our economies, globally, and within nations - a mine-set
that is captured by the phrase: “what’s mine is mine and what’s
yours is up for grabs”.
As
one of the significant milestones on the road from Stockholm the Rio
Conference was able to bring together a much larger set of
constituencies and a correspondingly larger range of view points.
Not everyone could agree on the root problems and possible
strategies needed, but I have to admit that I am largely persuaded
by the proposition often voiced at Rio that the goals of sustainable
development cannot be reached with today’s urban-industrial
lifestyles. Even less, with the existing disparities in the
international economy. Sustainable development implies not only
efficient and ecologically sound management of resources, but also
the establishment of a high level of social equity and political
empowerment.
And then there is the question of our consumption patterns. What
hope is there for this planet if the counties of the South start to
consume resources as the North does today? They are not only
entitled to do so under any concept of fairness and justice, but
they are also being encouraged to by the forces of the global
market. What is the relationship between efficiency and
sufficiency? What will be the demographic, economic and
environmental impact in the longer term if their poverty and
marginalisation in the global economy further delay the
stabilisation of their populations?
Yet one must admit that while we are certainly into a major
intellectual revolution, there are not many signs that it has begun
to have an impact on our actions on the ground. Or even on our
policies and institutions. The issues of environment and
sustainable development had brought our governments again and again
to the negotiating table, and have elicited powerful rhetoric on the
enormity and urgency of the issues. They have led to the signing of
the treaties, conventions and agreements. And they have produced
numerous promises. But, truthfully, not much has happened in terms
of actual practice and behaviour.
One is tempted to think that governments, with the notable exception
of a few countries like Sweden and its neighbours, sign these
agreements with their fingers crossed behind their backs. It may
well be that some of them never had any intention to fulfil those
promises. Otherwise how can one account for the lack of progress on
commitments, let alone action, to lower carbon emissions, to reduce
biodiversity loss or to fund the programmes of Agenda 21? Official
development assistance is lower, not higher than at the time of
Rio. And even the pitiably meagre finances given to the GEF are not
available for Agenda 21.
The future is quite bleak, unless real change takes place - and
takes place soon. Despite all our collective efforts, the
environmental and development trends that led the world’s leaders to
make these agreements have not yet been reversed. In most cases
they have not even slowed down.
What do the next twenty five years hold for us? I don’t know. And
if the existing patterns of decision-making continue, frankly I
don’t particularly care. All of us, in the North and South, rich
and poor, young and old, will be in pretty serious trouble.
But I do have some ideas about what the world could be like in
twenty five years from now, and what it should be like. And about
that I do care. Getting to such a world would need some changes in
the way we do things - changes in the policies and practices of
governments, businesses, professionals and in the lifestyles of each
of us. But change in thinking or behaviour is never easy to
achieve. Generally, it occurs when it appears to be in the
self-interest of those who are in charge, or when it is required by
law.
In
the organisation where I work, Development Alternatives, we are
permitted to dream and talk about visions only if we can specify a
strategy by which those dreams can be made to come true. So, here I
will try only to identify those changes that can be brought about by
feasible interventions, ones which can be made or at least plausibly
promoted by ordinary people like you and me.
Let me suggest some that I believe are crucial for sustaining human
civilisation on this planet, and where changes in education and
public opinion that can be brought about by people like us and could
in turn lead to the adoption by our governments, corporations and
others, of the new policies and perceptions needed.
As
a consumer, I can demand products and services in the market that
are less polluting and more resource conserving, with fewer
chemicals and more natural materials. If we all agree to do this,
we can expect much improvement in environmental quality during the
next quarter century. Perhaps even more than the growing desire
among the well-off for better health and well-being, this process
will certainly be accelerated by the introduction of legal
liabilities that make it costly for corporations to do bad things.
As
a professional working in a poor country, I would like to see a
better understanding of the central issues of consumption and
population: sufficiency and efficiency. How much is enough, and how
little do we have to use to get it? Since neither the marketplace
nor the central planning office can be relied on to get a fair and
equitable distribution, how will real allocations be made within the
global and national economies? And how soon will the poorest and
most marginalised be able to acquire the stake in a better future
that leads them to want smaller, healthier families? I can, of
course, do much of this in my own country, but I need a great deal
of help from all of you at the global level.
As
a business person, I wish to see policies level playing fields that
give me access to technologies, finance and markets that enable me
to service the needs of the widest possible clientele - but needs as
defined by them, and not by the anonymous but so powerful and
pervasive forces of the ‘global economy”. And I wish that the
“bottom-line” profits seen by the investors were not the only force
that drives my decisions.
As
a worker, I am entitled to a sustainable livelihood - one that gives
me dignity and meaning, allows me to produce goods and services that
people need and provides me with the income with which I can
purchase my share of these. Above all, my work will be designed so
as not to destroy the resource base. Sustainable livelihoods tend
to strengthen local economies, empower women and regenerate the
environment. Large scale generation of sustainable livelihoods,
both in the North and the South, may well be the surest way to
attain our conservation goals. And to make the demographic
transition that is so urgently needed in the South.
Today’s industrial methods are no good. They involve too much
capital. They waste too many resources. They cause too much
pollution and disrupt too many life support systems - the material
flows generated today by mankind are estimated to be already
comparable in magnitude to geological flows. And their products go
mainly to the rich. Large scale industry causes large scale
disruption, both ecologically and socially. So, as an environmental
engineer, I hope to develop new technologies and also a new science
of economics that creates work places, jobs, at one tenth the
cost of the ones we are creating today in our globalized economy.
And to increase the productivity of material resource use in the
North by at least 10 times what it is today to create the
environmental space needed by the South to achieve a decent and
acceptable to level of well-being.
Sustainable industrialisation will unquestionably have to be more
decentralized, efficient and responsive than it is today. And this
will need a whole array of innovations in planning, technologies,
institutions and financing methods. The planning systems will have
to be much more participative, scientific and bottom up. The
technologies will have to be smaller, cleaner and smarter. The
institutions and policies will have to be geared, first and
foremost, to fulfilling the needs of the poorest. And financing
systems, including multilateral and bilateral development
assistance, will have to change radically from their narrow project
based, short term focus if they are to respond to the needs of their
clients as much as they do to the requirements of their masters.
As
a student and practitioner of sustainable development I will try to
get all economists back to school. This is not only to reduce the
damage they have done to our economies with their simplistic
assumptions, but also in the vague hope that they might improve
their understanding of how the issues of technology, institutions,
economics and environment come together and how they impact the
goals of sustainability. In particular, I would require them to
take courses in resource pricing, environmental accounting, scales
of production, financing systems and the many other factors that are
in need of fundamental change. (This is one dream for which I do
not yet have a strategy, but it is nevertheless the one I cherish
the most).
As
a citizen, I want open, transparent systems of governance which
allow me to participate in the decisions that affect my life and
make use of my knowledge of the resource base. Radical changes are
now needed in the archaic bureaucratic systems of administration in
many of our countries. My own country inherited them from colonial
times and retains them to this day, largely unchanged. But they
were set up to exploit and export natural resources in large
quantities and as fast as possible, not to conserve and sustain
them. With these same structures of governance how can we expect
things to change for the better?
As
a scientist, I would like to see my fellow researchers get
out of the Cartesian trap that separates their hearts from their
heads. Science can no longer be divorced from the issues of human
aspiration and higher values, disembodied from the realities of
poverty and resource destruction. Abstract science, with its
powerful but limiting methods of reductionism and exclusive focus on
“objectivity”, quantification and simplification is no longer
adequate to deal with the complex, interlinked systems that support
life on our planet.
As
a member of the voluntary sector, I wish to see the civil society,
particularly in the third world, survive and grow. The inexorable
trend towards privatisation must not be allowed - either by
diversion of development work to corporations, or because of
inability to compete for the best professionals - to marginalise the
role of independent organisations in our economies. In my opinion,
there can be no higher priority for donor agencies than to build the
capacity of the non-governmental sector in developing countries and
strengthen their ability to generate income to finance its
operations on sustainable basis.
As
a human being, I often worry deeply about the absence of the concept
of ethics in our work on science, environment and development. This
cannot be good for us or for life on earth as a whole. Do we wish,
for example, to conserve our fauna and flora for the practical
benefit of mankind, or for the intrinsic right-to-life of all living
things? Sooner rather than later, the conservation movement will
have to work out a better balance between those of its
constituencies that believe in concepts such as “sustainable use”
and those who are driven by a “reverence for life”.
As
a son, I dream of a world in which all ageing people have the kind
of care and support they do in Sweden.
And as a parent, I can only hope to leave behind for my children and
their generation a world that is secure - physically, emotionally
and intellectually. Such a world will have to get better systems in
place to manage the interactions not only between people and nature,
and people and machines, but also between people and people. In the
next twenty five years it is the conflicts over scarce resources
that, more than anything else trigger the more scary dreams I have.
And in a unipolar world with a growing tendency to equate global or
social good with narrow self-interest, these could quite quickly
make nightmares into horrible reality.
So, finally, as a colleague, I can only express the hope that
Maurice Strong will still be available at the next big anniversary
of Stockholm and Rio, fifteen years from now, and will make the next
major world Summit as great a success as the first two. It will
have to prevent the consequences of the third and most dangerous of
the mine-sets: “mine and bomb the b.. bad guys until they give us
their resources”. q
Ashok Khosla, President, Society for Development Alternatives.
The article is the text of Dr. Ashok Khosla’s speech
delivered in the Swedish Parliament to celebrate the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the Stockholm Conference.
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