Sustainable Development in a Globalized World

Introduction

We proceed from the understanding that globalization, development, and sustainability are discussed in normative languages of conflicting goals, means, and visions while also interacting in complex and contextually mediated ways. Importantly, the three processes have different degrees of institutionalization and operationalization and are driven by different, sometimes conflicting interests. In this editorial, we introduce and contextualize the three global processes before presenting the main ideas of the six articles that may serve as inspiration and for problematization of the emerging Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

On Globalization

The scholarly literature on globalization including its origin, dynamics, benefits, or perils, could now fill a medium-sized library, and comprises not only proponents and opponents of globalization but also believers in globalization as an ongoing process from time immemorial, outright deniers of the validity of the concept itself and advocates of “postglobalization” as the main attribute of our era (Beck, 2011; Feenstra, 2014; Ferguson, 2005; Guillén, 2001). The impression that time–space compression is a salient feature of the contemporary world was suggested by David Harvey (1989). In 1990, Anthony Giddens proposed that to cope with the reality of globalization, social science should shift its focus from the study of human societies to “time–space distanciation.” Further, and in the words of Manuel Castells (2000), it is striking that we all experience “simultaneity in social relations.” This produces unprecedented scope for the impacts of the actions of one group of people (or nations) on the course of events in other parts of the world, and for generations to come. The time and space nexus is thereby at the core of sustainability and a plea for what Brown (2008) calls “normative globalization.”

On Development

Development defies simple definitions due to its rich postwar history of theory, practice and ideology rooted in the enlightenment and the ideas of social change in the early 19th century. Methodologically, development implies both goals and means, where goals are often expressed as long-term aims while means are mainly formulated in short-term policies. In some cases, modernization and industrialization have been viewed both as goals and as means of development, but experiences of pollution, resource degradation, and depletion (Angel & Rock, 2005; York & Rosa, 2012) imply that “modernity no longer seems so attractive in view of ecological problems” (Pieterse, 2010, p. 1). In light of these and other contested views of development, the relevance of the discourse may be questioned (Cornwall, 2007) as may its ambivalent results (Jönsson, Jerneck, & Arvidson, 2012).

Development theory have neglected the dynamics of the physical environment wherein (socioeconomic) development is supposed to take place (Cowen & Shenton, 1996; Pieterse, 2010). Even when development theory highlights the fact that poverty and environment are intertwined, it often stops there, or resorts to sweeping statements on the need for efficient use of resources. Some may even propose that the topic of ‘development and environment’ is highly controversial (Meier, 1995). With the assumption, thrown up by climate change, of profound global, regional, and local repercussions on natural resources, and other assets on which livelihoods of the poor are based (Field et al., 2012), it becomes a problem when the development discourse externalizes negative impacts of resource exploitation and pollution. Although the scientific community agrees that climate change will alter the conditions for production and consumption substantially, the development discourse lacks a systemic analysis of the Earth system and its social implications.

Mainstreaming as a process may not solve burning social, political, and environmental issues. The continued loss of biodiversity (Mace, Masundire, & Baillie, 2005) and the lingering absence of gender equality (Jerneck & Olsson, 2014) are conspicuous examples. Mainstreaming can create conflicting goals, loss of political force, and methodological problems resulting from an overloading of the discourse. As examples, sustainable development is more complex than the “greening” of development projects, while gender equality is more complex and structurally embedded than the often simplified “gendering” of development projects assumes (Kabeer, 2005).

On Sustainable Development

Sustainable development as a political and scientific agenda emerged as a political vision with the Brundtland Report “Our Common Future” in 1987 (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). The concept has evoked many meanings and aroused much political and academic debate since then. While many criticize sustainable development for its promise to “square the circle” (Dryzek, 1997; W. Sachs, 1999) by identifying a new development model that will promote growth while assuming an ecologically sustainable and just world order, it has also been welcomed as a generative metaphor around which conflicting environmental and economic interests can meet (Fisher & Hajer, 1997; Hajer, 1995).

Sustainable development can be seen as a political vision underpinned by the theory of ecological modernization (Jerneck & Olsson, 2014; York, Rosa, & Dietz, 2010). This implies four main principles (Mol, 1997): First, modern science and technology is important for ecologizing the economy. Second, there is no inherent conflict between the economy and the environment, hence market instruments should be harnessed for sustainable development by internalizing externalities—economizing ecology. Third, the role of the state ought to change to become more proactive in mobilizing private actors to take initiative, such as corporate social responsibility. Fourth, social movements should change from watchdogs to active participants in sustainable development. In essence, the theory of ecological modernization has developed in tandem with neoliberal ideology resulting in what several scholars call green neoliberalism (Bakker, 2010; Castree, 2010; Goldman, 2005).

Although contested, the variety of definitions for sustainable development proposed over the past decades seems to converge around concerns for peace, justice, development, and the environment (Kates, Parris, & Leiserowitz, 2005). If sustainable development is the process, sustainability is the goal. In contrast, sustainable development, as a paradigm and transition process, strives to deal with both temporal and nature–society complexities. As we see it, sustainable development offers at least three advantages over the development discourse. First, sustainable development theorizes the Earth system per se, as well as short- and long-term dynamics and relations to society; second, as a consequence of severe and partly unavoidable future impacts of climate change, sustainable development includes future generations and societies; and, third, sustainable development appeals to all countries to embark on a sustainability transition, whereas development appeals mainly to developing countries and to living generations or generations in the very near future. These core aspects of sustainable development are undertheorized by development theory and while absent from development practice such reasoning is compatible with transition theory (Geels, 2011).

If development was institutionalized through the Bretton Woods system with its powerful agencies and agreements and an evolving network of multi-lateral and bi-lateral development organisations (Jönsson et al., 2012), then sustainable development was institutionalized through a system of political meetings, such as the Rio conference in 1992, the Johannesburg conference in 2012 and the Rio+20 in 2012 as well as the multi-lateral conventions of the UNFCC, UNCBD and UNCCD¹ along with political declarations such as Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration (Clémençon, 2012a). Compared to the development discourse – even including all its polemics, impasses and shortcomings (Jönsson et al., 2012) – sustainable development remains polarised and divisive as illustrated by the lack of progress at the Rio+20 conference (Clémençon, 2012b) and at the UNFCC meetings since COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009.

In this special issue, we focus on five central international policy areas that are key to the three global processes and discourses: food, agriculture, and land use; international transport; energy; eco-innovation; and migration. The special issue is introduced by Jerneck (2014) who discusses how the three discourses both intersect with and deviate from each other. Proceeding from the assumption that sustainable development have barely advanced beyond political rhetoric, she discusses the idea of a mobilizing narrative on climate change while also suggesting substantive inputs to it. The narrative is an unfolding story with the potential to serve as a theoretical thinking tool and an empirical guide to promote practical action. Following that, we investigate aspects of agriculture and food, energy, transportation, eco-innovation, and finally also migration as a potential result of climate change and environmental degradation.

On Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Due to increasing globalizations and rapid innovation in transport and communications technologies, agriculture has shifted from a situation where food was primarily seen as a national concern with high self-sufficiency goals (Barkin, 1987) to a situation where food is traded just like any other commodity and is subject to a high degree of vertical integration of value chains (Friedmann, 1993). In the coming decades, the agricultural sector will have to solve the complex equation of meeting growing food and energetic needs while significantly reducing its environmental impacts (Foley et al., 2011) under a changing climate (Lobell & Burke, 2010). Can this be achieved by continuing the globalized agricultural system or is there a need for reorientation? Using the Nexus Land Use model, Brunelle, Dumas, and Souty (2014) shows the tremendous impact globalization will potentially have on agriculture and land use through its influence on global food preferences. On a positive note, the article shows how globally converging healthy lifestyles can reduce the negative environmental impacts of agriculture by 2050 substantially. Yet, business-as-usual scenarios based on increasing consumption of meat and milk cannot be sustained by 2050. Brunelle, Dumas, and Souty (2014) also shows how improving land management of pastures can reduce the pressure on cropland—a potential sustainability pathway.

On International Transport

International transport is one of the important contributors to globalization, and the two most important modes of long-haul international transport—deep sea shipping and aviation—have seen rapid growth which is projected to continue (Hummels, 2007; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2010). This growth in long-haul transport has been seen as a major driver of economic growth, by promoting trade and hence growth in the newly industrializing countries (NICs) such as Brazil, India, and China. But it is also seen as a driver of increasing global inequality (Ohnmacht, Maksim, & Bergman, 2009) and environmental degradation by facilitating the expansion of a high-consumption Western lifestyle (Jorgenson, Dick, & Shandra, 2011; Meyfroidt, Lambin, Erb, & Hertel, 2013). A typology of the potential benefits at the national, industrial, and individual levels of international transport for sustainable development is developed by Köhler (2014), showing impacts through the frame of the three pillars of sustainable development—social, environmental, and economic. The importance of international transport for enabling least developed countries (LDCs) and NICs to participate in global political decision making and cultural events, as well as for the development of participation in global production networks is identified as an area where there appear to be important effects. However, there is little research in this area. Three scenarios of transition pathways are then developed.

The first scenario is based on sustainable development from mass diffusion of information and computer technologies in LDCs and NICs leading to participation of LDCs in global production networks and growth in LDCs based on Internet-based services, as well as manufacturing and raw materials extraction. The second scenario is based on a change in social preferences toward a high priority for the environment, leading to an extensive growth in fair-trade networks and sustainable production and consumption. The third scenario entails economic growth in NICs, with a higher priority placed on solving environmental problems. This leads to economic development in LDCs through trade growth with NICs and LDCs together with the adoption of low-emission technologies in international transport, with new firms based in NICs becoming market leaders.

On Energy

Energy is at the nexus of two sustainability concerns affecting the long-term economy, namely, climate change driven by extraction and combustion of fossil fuels and energy security concerns driven by oil resource exhaustion and geopolitical tensions. Compared with other environmental challenges, such as the destruction of stratospheric ozone and acid rain, the energy system is magnitudes more complex and difficult to deal with. Acid rain and the thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer could be solved by technological fixes: by removing sulfur from the combustion of fossil fuel and by changing the cooling medium in refrigerators. These technological changes did not affect our daily lives and thus life could proceed as before. But energy use is so intertwined with everyday life that we cannot simply pin our hopes on a technological fix. To capture the interdependencies between the energy sector and the macroeconomy, Waismann, Cassen, and Hourcade (2014) use the IMACLIM-R general equilibrium model to study possible energy transition pathways. A key message from their study is that a simple carbon pricing mechanism is far from enough for such an energy transition to happen. Complementary measures in the form of infrastructural development, which could tackle, for example, transport-related emissions would also be required. Considering the globalization of capital markets, this raises crucial questions about the allocation of such investments. Their modeling exercise suggests that the efficient allocation of investments is not automatically guaranteed by free capital markets.

On Eco-Innovation

While anthropogenic influences on global life-support systems have reached a magnitude unprecedented in human history, to levels that now jeopardize the well-being of humanity, the political responses to these problems are still in their infancy. Ecological modernization has emerged as a theory as well as the foremost political ideology to meet global sustainability challenges. With ecological modernization, much fate is put on technological research and development in the hope that innovation will steer the global economy in the direction of sustainability. In their article, Walz, Köhler, and Marscheider-Weidemann (2014) analyze the role eco-innovation may have in transition to sustainability with a special focus on NICs. Indicators of general eco-innovation capability suggest that while the NICs are not global leaders in eco-innovation, several NICs (Brazil, China, Malaysia, and South Africa) have become active in eco-innovation and some NICs (Brazil, Malaysia, Mexico, and South Africa) can be assessed as relatively strong in sustainability technologies. Renewable energy is an important area of eco-innovation, and Walz et al. (2014) focus on the potential for developing the second and third generation of biofuel technologies. Several NICs, including Indonesia, Thailand, and possibly India, have the favorable combination of high biofuel production potential and the requisite technological capability to develop internationally competitive biofuel production technologies, in order to benefit from the assumed future markets for more sustainable biofuels.

On Climate and Migration

Globalization implies increasing international flows of ideas, ideals, capital, goods, services, and people. The mobility of people, however, is particularly divisive and subject to intense political debate, not least in the European Union. On the one hand, there are apocalyptic scenarios where climate change results in mass migration (Biermann & Boas, 2008; Myers, 1989), while on the other hand we see increasing political mobilization of antimigration movements, particularly in Europe. Climate change and migration has been debated for decades and is an area of highly polarized views. To understand how environmental discourses emerge and evolve, Bettini and Andersson (2014) compare the emerging discourse of climate refugees with the much older desertification discourse, a policy area often criticized for its lack of scientific rigor.

Toward SDGs

The Millennium Development Goals have been seen as the foremost global policy initiative for concretizing sustainable development and as such they have received much praise (Binagwaho & Sachs, 2005; J. D. Sachs et al., 2009) but also critique (Attaran, 2005; Griggs et al., 2013; Moss, 2010; Saith, 2006). Following a proposal by Colombia and Guatemala in 2011, the process of defining a new set of global goals is well under way—the SDGs (Clémençon, 2012b; Glaser, 2012). The focus on goals rather than means to achieve them is a striking similarity between the two processes. We argue that the means to achieve the goals, the transition pathways, are more contentious than the goals themselves and thus deserve much more attention in research. We hope that this special issue will provide inspiration for the process of formulating the SDGs by problematizing the means and processes by which they can be promoted.