What stands in the way of sustainable development?
A lot of what stands in the way of sustainable development is that many things that we call development aren’t really development. We have a good definition of development, with Amartya Sen, which looks at developing human capabilities through health and education. But even with this definition, you very quickly get back to the kinds of things that are associated with other forms of development, like electricity, which is what I’m working on currently because it’s very hard to have good health and good schools without electricity.
And so, if you’re going to have electricity, well then it has to be built somewhere, and so you need a hydropower dam or wind power. This creates trade-offs between the different definitions of development, and I think this is the reason why we’re having such trouble achieving sustainable development.
I try to highlight these trade-offs: that there are some things that are very good from an environmental perspective, but that are problematic from another perspective. For example, nuclear power is much better from a climate perspective than other alternatives, but it carries very real dangers that stick around for a long time. Even wind power has environmental problems at a more local level, in terms of the impact it can have on dunes, or birds, and other wildlife. And so I think the really tough questions for sustainable development are those places where you have to make difficult trade-offs.
