According to India's Father of Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, there's enough in the world for everone's need but not enough for everyone's greed.
Inspite of the fast paced development of numerous economies world over, both in terms of GDP as well as human development Index measures, the distribution of benefits of development have been very uneven, with income disparities remaining persistent and sometimes increasing over time. The no. of extremely poor and the no. of mal-nourished people across the globe have remained high even in the wake of persistent efforts by United Nations,NGOs and other bodies worldover. In some areas these numbers have even increased, despite the global middle class achieving relative affluence.
Also, there have been major negative impacts of development on the environment and on
existing social structures. Many traditional societies have been devastated by
removal of forests, development of fresh/potable water systems, and intensive fisheries. There has been an unbalanced development in the developing nations with urban areas commonly suffering from inadequate transportation, water, sewer and medical infrastructure.The manifold increase in vehicular population in these areas has added air pollution to their list of woes. To complicate further, the industrialized economies have contributed their share of air pollution as well creating a situation where the layers of atmosphere around us have been critically impacted creating the slow but eventually devastating phenomenon of Global Warming.
Issues such as these cannot be brushed aside any longer. We have reached a stage where the effects are beginning to appear and the consequences are expected to be far reaching,long lasting & global in nature, which can eventually lead to the collapse of all the essential ecosystems.
Thus arises the need for sustainable development. Sustainable development is a pattern of resource usage that aims to meet human needs and the social challenges while preserving the environment for future by keeping in view the concerns related to carrying capacity of natural systems.
The Brundtland Commission first coined this term ,which is now often defined as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
The idea of sustainable development grew from numerous environmental movements in earlier decades. Summits such as the Earth Summit in Rio, Brazil, 1992, were major international meetings to bring sustainable development to the mainstream.
As obvious, at the core of sustainable development are numerous inter-related global issues such as poverty, inequality, hunger and environmental degradation.
The United Nations 2005 World Summit Outcome Document refers to the "interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars" of sustainable development as economic development, social development, and environmental protection. These are also famously known as three dimensions for profitability (triple bottom line).
Sustainable development calls for resolving the conflict between the various competing goals, and involves the simultaneous pursuit of economic prosperity, environmental quality and social equity. This translates to investment in R&D on cleaner technologies for power generation, adoption of healthy environmental and housekeeping practices and discipline.World over there are initiatives being planned and executed towards reduction of carbon foot print at industrial, commercial and domestic levels.
In India, Sustainable development now encompasses a variety of development schemes in social, cleantech (clean energy, clean water and sustainable agriculture) and human resources segments. Both public and private sectors, along with the Central and state governments are increasingly taking interest in building awareness on this.In fact, India is expected to begin the greening of its national income accounting, making depletion in natural resources wealth a key component in its measurement of gross domestic product (GDP).
Through incentivization of generation and consumption of renewable energy, the Indian Government is encouraging public-private participation in projects on green energy from sources like solar and wind. Also there is a renewed thrust on Super critical and Ultra Super Critical Technologies, which are expected to considerably reduce the carbon footprint in the near future.India's sustained effort towards reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) will ensure that the country's per capita emission of GHG will continue to be low until 2030-31, and it is estimated that the per capita emission in 2031 will be lower than per capita global emission of GHG in 2005.
To summarize, sustainable development recognizes the interdependence of environmental, social and economic systems and promotes equality and justice through people empowerment and a sense of global citizenship. We must understand that inaction will have consequences and we must find innovative ways to change institutional structures and influence individual behaviour. We must initiate policy changes and improve practices at all levels, from the individual to the international to be able to flourish while preserving the environment long enough for our future generations to enjoy the fruits of our technical advancements in a clean and green environment.
