Question

Give 3 examples of situations that describe why the relationship between social, economic and ecological aspects are important to achieve a sustainable development

Answer 1

Following are the examples of the situations that describe why the relationship between social, economic and ecological aspects are important to achieve a sustainable development:-

1) Global Warming

The Global Warming issue had a major impact on the debate about sustainable development in two fundamental aspects: the approach to environmental risk and, again, the issue of trade-off between economic growth and the environment. Regarding the first aspect, the notion of prudence gives way to the most appropriate and accurate concept of Precaution, which has been raised to the condition of principle and was formally adopted at the Rio 92 Conference. The issue of ecosystem uncertainty in the case of global warming and its mitigation based on the Precautionary Principle (as proposed by the Kyoto Protocol) highlights the second aspect mentioned, since the rapid reduction of emissions is costly. Although eco-developmentalists did not deny the existence of some sort of trade-off between economic growth and the environment, the assumption was that this would be negligible provided that the set of proposed policies was adopted.

2) Internalize

The most efficient environmental policy is one that creates the conditions for economic agents to internalize the costs of the degradation they cause. State action is necessary only to correct this market failure, either through privatization or the pricing of natural resources. Once these failures have been resolved to ensure the correct economic signals of the relative scarcity of these environmental services, the dynamic of intertemporal allocation of resources based on cost-benefit assessments would tend to be processed efficiently, with no problems such as uncertainty and risk of irreversible losses.

3) Improved Social Conditions:-

The conciliatory proposition of eco-developmentalists is based on a normative concept of what development can and should be: it is possible to maintain efficient (sustainable) economic growth in the long term alongside improved social conditions (by distributing income) while respecting the environment. However, efficient economic growth is seen as a necessary but not sufficient condition for improving human welfare: the desired income distribution (the primary indicator of social inclusion) does not automatically result from economic growth, which can be socially exclusionary; specific public policies designed to prevent growth from benefiting only a minority are necessary; likewise, the ecological balance can be adversely affected by economic growth and limit it in the long run without the help of ecologically prudent policies that encourage the increase of eco-efficiency and reduce the risk of potentially important environmental losses.