Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
concept of 'environmental space' first developed by Friends of the Earth in Europe.
Unlike the similar concept of ecological footprinting, environmental space does not
aggregate resources into a single land-area based index but allows the environmental
space targets for specific countries to be calculated by dividing the global environ-
mental space for a given resource by the world's total population. In this way, each
individual is allocated a 'fair share' - if people do not have the basic means and
capabilities to support themselves in a dignified manner, their fundamental rights as
human beings are not being met. For many of the world's people, it is basic rights
and capabilities for subsistence - health, housing and nourishment - that are of
immediate and imminent importance. Without access to life-sustaining ecological
resources and systems, many of which are threatened by urbanization, international
trading regulations, climate change and extractive industries, human development
cannot be sustainable or just. For Sachs (2004), local community rights over resources
must be recognized and strengthened rather than attacked or fought over. Intact
ecosystems mean the poor are less vulnerable, but for this to occur people in the
affluent countries must moderate their demands and expectations. As Sachs writes:
Only if demand for oil falls will it no longer be worth launching drillings in the
primeval forest. Only if the thirst for agriculture and industry abates will enough
groundwater remain to supply village wells. Only if the burning of fossil fuels
is restricted will insidious climate change no longer threaten the existential rights
of the poor.
(2004: 48)
Environmental space therefore operationalizes the notion of environmental limits
in measurable terms, articulating concepts of intergenerational and environmental
justice and spatial equity. The environmental space framework provides a bench-
mark for addressing the historic environmental justice or ecological debt issues which
campaigners in the developing world see existing between the rich and poor nations
of the world. As McLaren (2003) argues, the concept of ecological debt sharpens
our understanding of sustainable development further by bringing sharply into
focus power relations and decision-making processes, determining global resource
exploitation and consumption.
Ecological debt and human development
As discussed in
Chapter 1
, the activities of international financial and trading
organizations like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade
Organization, together with the developed world as a whole, are often held responsible
for the global inequities, economic distortions and social dislocations accompanying
globalization. Financial loans have been offered to developing countries on condi-
tions that mean their national economies are liberalized and privatized while public
spending on health, education and other public services is reduced. The poverty and
hardship of many Third World people has increased as debts and debt repayments
to the creditor nations and organizations have mounted. Criticism from NGOs
like Oxfam and from publications like
The Ecologist
have been scathing. Many
campaigners at Seattle in 1999 and in Prague in 2000 interpreted the failure of First
World governments to eradicate Third World poverty and debt as simply maintaining
