Sustainable Development, Development Research, and the Role of Canada

1. Sustainable Development, Development Research, and the Role of Canada Ligia Noronha The Energy and Resources Institute New Delhi October 19, 2007

2. Sustainable development- wide acceptability of the concept • As a goal and mission of countless organizations • Fuzziness of the concept which interestingly allows consensus building • Provides a common language • Unifying core - built around needs, ecological limits, and social acceptability

3. Key Trends inDevelopment Research • Focus on Socio-ecological Systems • Mechanisms and Institutions that Mediate this Relationship • Health of Ecosystems • Sustainable Livelihoods • Natural Resource and Environmental Accounting • Trade and Sustainable Development • Multi-sector Partnerships • Tool Kits to Track Sustainability

4. Climate change risks • By the end of 21st century: • Global average surface temperature is projected to increase by 1.8 to 4oC: similar in SE Asia, but higher elsewhere in Asia • The global mean sea level is projected to rise by 0.18 to 0.59 meters; higher in Asia Could lead to rapid, large and unexpected impacts on local, regional and global scales. Climate variability, including extreme weather events, is estimated to cause over 150,000 deaths annually.

5. Communicable Health Risks International travel and trade has vastly increased the speed and ease of risk transfer. http://www.pandemicflu.gov/ • Newly described or recognized • Expanding distributions • Increased local incidence • (Source: Wilson, 2001)

6. Energy Security Risks • Energy and Poverty – leading to non traditional security risks (environmental health, burden on women, lack of jobs) http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/energy/pdf/18_sayigh_en.pdf Indoor Smoke from solid fuels kills 1.6 million people a year (WHO) Source: WEO, 2003 • Energy and growth – leading to possible competition over securing resources and possible traditional security conflicts, increased carbon emissions

7. A greater sense of shared vulnerability exists, but not entirely clear if this is leading to • greater efforts at international collective action, or • to more nationalist jingoism, strategic thinking, and over reactions that could lead to instability and conflict.

8. Is Canada well placed to address international sustainable development issues more strongly? What lessons can it export to others, what can it learn from others if it is to lead international sustainable development more effectively?

9. Canada’s engagement with international sustainable development • Active engagement with the concept since it first came into use, but a temporary slow-down in 2006 • Committed to multilateralism • Being off-course on its carbon commitments under the Kyoto Protocol suggests, however, that it has a long way to go in terms of aligning national interests with international needs • Public concern with climate change is perceived as key driver for a renewed engagement today.

10. How is Canada placed relative to 21 other rich counties in its commitments to international sustainable development? ODA has been increasing since 2003, but an implementation gap remains between international commitments and capacity (0.3% rather than 0.7% of GNI) Source: http://www.cgdev.org/section/initiatives/_active/cdi Source: HDR, 2005, Table 17, p 278

11. Support for International Development Research • IDRC one of the top 10 supporters in the world • In research diplomacy, leads from the front • “IDRC is a venture capitalist of ideas” • Four areas of inquiry: • Social and Economic Equity • Environment and Natural Resource Management • Information and Communication Technologies for Development • Innovation, Policy and Science • A glaring omission, however, is energy research.

12. Looking Ahead To me “Our Common Future” seems but a literary flourish, having survived without the heart and political will required to move beyond national borders, economic and social differences, grotesque lifestyles and limitless wants of elites across villages, groups and nations that benefit often at the expense of the less powerful with no voice and limited ability to defend their rights and space.

13. Needed - multi-actor frameworks of international cooperation • Facilitate social learning • Protect the social fabric of technologically driven societies • Enable quicker, more innovative, flexible and appropriate responses to complex issues • Enable negotiation of interests to accommodate multiple identities • Enable a shared view of risks and precautions • Help build resilience to emerging risks & greater justice • Help financial resourcing Modified from Hempel, 1996 Why?

14. New Thinking • To understand and improve quality of transnational collective action through better institutions for cooperation which require political will, mutual trust, shared objectives • To build national capacity for regional cooperation • To understand the role of global public private partnerships

15. New science and ways of doing science • More integrated, transdisciplinary science • A greater focus on intergenerational issues, risk analysis • Support for research on sustainable consumption and production systems (SCP) • Enhancing capacities to understand multi- dimensional risks from new technologies • Creating incentive for greater private effort in socially valuable technologies • Partnerships and dialogues for linking knowledge with action

16. New funds and creative financing Transregional & regional public goods • Disaster early warning systems • Regional climate forecasting systems • Disease surveillance & monitoring systems • Tropical disease research • Health and environment learning networks • Flood Control National-level public goods • Investment in improved population health status • Investment in in environmental health improvement • Strengthen weather-based information generation, flood forecasting, preparedness and insurance, • Strengthen infrastructure capable of greater exposure to risks, • SLR sensitive coastal development Top up development aid financing New financing Local Level capacity building • To access finance for risky,less proved investments in more sustainable energy systems • To respond to the greening of markets, especially by SMEs • To acquire information and • To increase the effectiveness of government, especially local, in addressing sustainable development objectives Innovative financing

17. To conclude Canada has to be enlightened (which it is), altruistic (it can go further), and most of all, more political within the OECD and the G8 to address the persistent power asymmetries that constitute the world order.

18. Thank You