Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security 3030389049, 9783030389048

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Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security Edited by Andrew Crabtree

Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security

Andrew Crabtree Editor

Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security

Editor Andrew Crabtree Copenhagen Business School Frederiksberg, Denmark

ISBN 978-3-030-38904-8    ISBN 978-3-030-38905-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38905-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Maram / shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is dedicated to the memory of our co-author Felix Rauschmayer

Contents

1 Capabilities, Human Security and the Centrality of Sustainability  1 Andrew Crabtree 2 Human Development and Strong Sustainability: A Mutual Dialogue 19 Jérôme Pelenc and Jean-Luc Dubois 3 Sustainability Indicators, Ethics and Legitimate Freedoms 51 Andrew Crabtree 4 Sustaining Human Well-Being Across Time and Space—Sustainable Development, Justice and the Capability Approach 75 Felix Rauschmayer, Torsten Masson, Ortrud Leβmann, and Rebecca Gutwald 5 Where Are Criteria of Human Significance in Climate Change Assessment?103 Des Gasper and Simone Rocca

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6 Human Development Thinking About Climate Change Requires a Human Rights Agenda and an Ontology of Shared Human Security135 Des Gasper 7 Conclusion: The Sustainable Development Goals and Capability and Human Security Analysis169 Andrew Crabtree and Des Gasper Index183

Notes on Contributors

Andrew  Crabtree is an adjunct associate professor at Copenhagen Business School. He has a background in philosophy, development, sustainability, disasters and mental health. His most recent work has concentrated on ethics, human development, sustainability and disasters. Jean-Luc Dubois  is emeritus researcher professor at the French Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD). He is the founder and former director of the International Research Unit RESILIENCES in Bondy, France. He is an economist and statistician by training. Des Gasper  is emeritus professor at the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague (Erasmus University Rotterdam). His background is in development economics, public policy and social ethics. He has participated in several research studies on climate change, sustainability and human security, such as GEO-4 and a series of Norwegian-led projects coordinated by the Universities of Bergen and Oslo and by CICERO. Rebecca Gutwald  is academic director of a PhD programme on ethics, culture and education at the Munich School of Philosophy, Germany. She also teaches at the University of Munich (LMU) and the Catholic School of Applied Science Munich, Germany. Her main areas of research are political philosophy, the capability approach and the normative foundations of social justice. She is working on a book on resilience and the capability approach. Ortrud  Leβmann is a senior researcher at the University of Hamburg and coordinates the research consortium “Labour Standards for Improved ix

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Well-Being”. An economist by training, her research interests lie in the overlap of economics, philosophy, sociology and philosophy of education. She co-coordinated the project on the conception of justice and sustainability on the basis of the Capability Approach, GeNECA. Torsten  Masson is a researcher at the University of Leipzig and the University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld. Trained as an economist and social psychologist, he works as a post-doctoral researcher in the fields of social and environmental psychology. Jérôme Pelenc  holds a Bachelor’s degree in Ecology, a Master’s degree in Ecological Economics and a PhD in Geography. He works at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Toulouse, France. Felix  Rauschmayer was an Ecological Economist by training. His research interests lay in the construction of interdisciplinary models for transdisciplinary sustainability research. He worked at the Helmholtz-­ Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig, leading the research field of sustainability transition at the Department of Environmental Politics. He coordinated the project on the conception of justice and sustainability on the basis of the Capability Approach, GeNECA. Simone Rocca  holds a Master’s degree in Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague (Erasmus University Rotterdam). He cultivates interests in climate change and ethics. He also holds a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Mechanical Measurements for Engineering from the University of Padova.

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3

Fig. 3.4 Fig. 4.1

A schematic version of the capability approach. (Source own) The logical structure of the capability approach. (Source: Own) A stylised dynamic representation of the capability approach within a critical natural capital framework. (Source: Own) The evaluative space of the capability approach. (Source: Own) Approaches to sustainable development indicators (blue indicates weak sustainability, green strong sustainability). (Source: Author’s own) Sustainable development inequality adjusted human development and the ecological footprint. (Source: Own figure based on Ecological Footprint Atlas 2010 and Human Development Report 2007) Planetary Boundaries II. (Source J. Lokrantz/Azote based on Steffen et al. 2015) Timeline of sustainable development discourse. (Own source, partly based on Baker 2006)

4 24 31 52 54

59 62 78

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 2.1 Table 3.1 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 7.1

Nussbaum’s central human capabilities Parameters that determine the use of ecosystem services (non-­exhaustive list) Summary of indicators The 14 most frequent content words in AR5 WGII SPM compared to the other SPMs Frequency of risk (in all forms: singular, plural, capitalized or not) in the four SPMs The layers of minimalist assumptions in ‘no-dispute’ estimates of damage caused via climate change by an individual’s consumption (based on Rocca and Gasper 2015) Sustainable Development Goals

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CHAPTER 1

Capabilities, Human Security and the Centrality of Sustainability Andrew Crabtree

1.1   Introduction Almost 50 years after the United Nations Conference on the 1972 Human Environment in Stockholm and more than 30 years after the publication of Our Common Future, the capability approach, led by the Nobel Prize winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen and the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, has paid relatively little attention to issues concerning sustainable development. As recently as 2013, Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze criticised India’s record on growth for not delivering on health and education whilst other comparable countries including some with lower growth rates have done better in terms of education and health. The authors maintain rapid growth is still desirable for India, but growth’s relationship to the environment receives scant attention even though, for example, India is the

I would like to thank Des Gasper for his insightful and thoughtful comments and suggestions. A. Crabtree (*) Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Crabtree (ed.), Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38905-5_1

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third largest greenhouse gas emitter. Their book devotes just over four pages out of over 400 to environmental issues and sustainability. In 2011, the political philosopher Martha Nussbaum stated “Getting clear about how to count the interests of subsequent generations of humans is of the highest importance for future work if the approach is to be a serious player in the environmental arena” (Nussbaum 2011, p. 164). In her Preface to the 2019 Journal of Human Development and Capabilities’ special issue in celebration of Amartya Sen’s 85th birthday, Nussbaum laments the lack of attention paid to environmental issues and the rights of non-human animals (Nussbaum 2019). However, these leading authors have primarily concerned themselves with development and intragenerational justice rather than sustainable development and intergenerational justice. This book addresses these gaps.1 The present chapter begins by outlining Sen and Nussbaum’s work and indicates how taking sustainability on board would make substantial differences to their overlapping approaches. It then moves on to introduce the sister concept of human security and its attractions. The constituent chapters of the book are then outlined. Two major themes run through the book. Firstly, the non-human environment is essential for human well-being and its role in relation to capabilities or human security needs articulating and specifying. A concentration on capabilities and our doings and beings (more technically “functionings”—see below) alone, which is the tendency in the literature, leads us to ignore these relationships and does not enable us to answer the question of whether human development is sustainable or not. Secondly, we must understand the capability approach in a dynamic way. Life does not end in doings and beings, functionings themselves have consequences for other people and for the environment. This includes future generations and the importance of intergenerational justice.

1.2   Sen, Nussbaum and Sustainability Why have Sen and Nussbaum given sustainability issues relatively so little attention? Although their works overlap, Sen and Nussbaum’s interests have different origins. Sen described in his Nobel Biographical statement two childhood experiences which have deeply influenced his work. The one was witnessing the stabbing of a Muslim day labourer, who later died, by Hindu thugs during the communal killings in mid-1940s India. In contrast to this unreason, Sen has always argued for tolerance, pluralism,

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openness, reasoning, deliberation and the importance of democracy both in his work on development and that on justice. The other experience was the 1943–1945 Bengal Famine in which two to three million people died and yet which hardly affected those Sen knew. This experience has manifested itself in his concern with the basics—poverty, famines, longevity, education, families—and is also reflected in the Human Development Index to which he made a major contribution. Add to this his work on social welfare theory and social choice and we have a huge body of work that deals with pressing issues. Martha Nussbaum’s opus is also very broad. Her background lies in political philosophy, Greek and Roman philosophy and literature and the importance of the emotions to philosophy and justice. Here, her thought is also strongly influenced by the work of the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott and object-relations theory. Her work within the capabilities approach has concerned basic social justice, for which she has defined a set of ten central capabilities which each individual should—as near as possible—possess (see below). Rectifying such lacks, she maintains, is the task of governments and policy. She has made substantial contributions to gender theory and animal rights. Neither author would claim that they have solved all the issues in their respective areas and given their astonishing breadth of work, should we expect Sen or Nussbaum to have made substantial contributions to issues surrounding sustainability too? But then those issues must be taken up by others inspired by Sen and Nussbaum. This volume seeks, in part, to amplify the capability approach but in doing so the authors ask vital questions about Sen and Nussbaum’s work. For example, Sen’s recommendation of rapid growth for India is short-­ termism if the greenhouse gas emissions associated with growth will lead to substantial capability loss in the not too distant future. At least, the type of growth matters. Similarly, it is not automatic that meeting the threshold requirements of Nussbaum’s basic social justice, including “being able to move freely from place to place”, is compatible with necessary reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions. Sustainability is not just an “add on”. It is fundamental. This introduction therefore both situates the book’s chapters in the context of Sen and Nussbaum’s overlapping, yet contrasting, approaches, and points to other important work that is being done within the fields of human development and of human security. The main terms used within the capability approach are somewhat problematic. As Sen has pointed out ‘capability’ is “not an awfully attractive word”, that possibly reminds us of nuclear warfare rather than human

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well-being (Sen 1993). It was chosen to designate the substantive freedoms that individuals have to achieve various functionings.2 ‘Functionings’ is another perhaps unhappy term which covers our ‘doings and beings’. But the word might sometimes evoke the workings of machinery rather than the human agency and choice that are at the heart of the approach. One might be tempted to use the word ‘flourishing’ instead of functioning but flourishing is positive, while not all doings and beings are. Given the prolific quantity and variety of both Sen and Nussbaum’s writings, it is not surprising that the approach has attracted a multidisciplinary audience and, related to this, there is no agreed definition of the capability approach. In Creating Capabilities, Nussbaum defines it as “an approach to comparative quality-of-life assessment and to theorizing about basic social justice” (Nussbaum 2011, p. 18). The definition captures important parts of both Sen and Nussbaum’s work and of those working within the capability approach. Yet, as Robeyns (2017) argues, the definition leaves out various strands of work within the capability approach. Sen for example has also examined the efficiency of markets in capability terms and others have looked for conceptual clarification via the capability approach. As Robeyns points out, Nussbaum’s definition does not capture how the approach is being used conceptually to elucidate various concepts. She points to the case of education and the important work that is being done on understanding what kind of education is needed for people to flourish rather than just gain skills for the labour market. The capability approach has also clarified itself in terms of what it is not, by its contrasts to other approaches, most notably those which are based on resources and those which concentrate on end-states. Income and growth approaches to development and some aspects of Rawls’ theory of justice belong to the first group, while classical utilitarianism can be considered part of the second. Diagrammatically, if somewhat simplistically, we can present these contrasts through a flow-diagram (Fig. 1.1). Within the field of development, the central attention has been on economic growth and income as measures of development and not just means of development. Sen’s argument against this has been that different people

Resources

Conversion factors

Capabilities/ freedoms

Functionings (doings and beings)

Fig. 1.1  A schematic version of the capability approach. (Source own)

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need different resources to have the same capabilities or freedoms and thus defining absolute poverty in terms of dollars, at present $1.90 per day, as the World Bank does, fails to capture the fact that different people need different amounts of money in order to achieve the same things. Between the resource and the capability there are various ‘conversion factors’ which affect a person’s freedom to do are be something. Sen’s famous example being that an able-bodied person and a person in a wheelchair need different resources (wheelchairs, ramps, elevators etc.) to be able to move around. Indeed, someone may well be earning more than $1.90 a day but be less able to get around than someone living on less than $1.90 a day. To offer another example, someone living in Greenland might need greater greenhouse gas emissions than someone living in Iceland, where thermal energy is available, to have the capability to be warm. For the capability approach, it is actually what you are or not able to do that counts rather than resources. The examples above do not provide a knock out argument as in theory someone supporting a resource-based view of development could factor in the amounts of money needed to pay for all the additional requirements to ensure equal mobility or warmth. However, other conversion factors, such as people’s attitudes or cultural norms or institutional set ups, cannot be monetarized. Individual’s freedoms may be curtailed by laws or mores preventing women from driving cars or blacks from voting under apartheid regimes. In such cases the lack of freedom cannot be made up for by increasing a person’s income. Socio-cultural changes are required if people are to have the same freedoms. This does not mean that resources are unimportant, rather they are seen as instrumental for having capabilities or achieving functionings. If we only judge people’s well-being in terms of their achieved functionings, we again miss important information. Robeyns (2005) provides example of a boxer and a beaten housewife both may have the same achieved functionings, i.e. being battered, but have a very different set of choices. Thus, Sen argues, the freedom to achieve various functionings is the most important space for welfare comparison. Obviously, in some cases we may simply examine functionings, such as during famines, as we can safely assume that people are not on hunger strike. Thus, agency is central here for some people can choose to have a lower well-being in the sense that a person on hunger strike’s well-being in nutritional terms may be deliberately lower, indeed they may die, than they otherwise could be as a result of their own agency. For Sen then, capabilities or freedoms are

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the relevant evaluative space and therefore development is defined in terms of increasing freedoms rather than increasing income. Perhaps partly to avoid monotony, Sen defines development in various ways. For example, in Development as Freedom the first sentence reads “Development can be seen, it is argued here, as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy” (Sen 1999, p. 3), which has a utilitarian flavour but it can also be interpreted as “benefit from”. On page nine he talks of freedoms that “people enjoy and have reason to treasure”, and then a little later “the expansion of the “capabilities” of persons to lead the kind of lives they value—and have reason to value” (p. 18). The latter is the most often referred to in the literature. However, there are many interpretations of what “reason to value” means which on one view it sounds excessively open, a criticism that was first put in print by Nussbaum (2003), for surely we want to distinguish between good and bad reasons and whether or not that distinction is based on some form of self-reflection or collective deliberation or an appeal to something objective (Khader and Kosko 2018). Part of what is at stake is included in the notion of ‘adaptive preferences’, stereotypical examples of which are women who have traditionally passively accepted their lot in rural India and value leading their lives, the implication being that they would choose otherwise if they reflected more and had the opportunity to do so. As Sen has pointed out changes have come about through public discussion not least led by women’s movements and “through radical political re-examination of diverse sources of inequality in India” (Sen 2009, p. 275). On this line of argument, reason to value is not just a question of individual reflection or public deliberation but a particular kind of deliberation which involves radical political re-­examination. But, again, it is not entirely clear what that entails, but it does suggest that we are talking of social values more generally. This is important because all of us have values which are shaped in part by others and attention to our values is crucial as Deneulin has rightly argued “Trying, for example, to make a country implement environmental policies while the majority of its population does not value environmental care, is bound to fail if people’s values are not changed to include protection of the environment as a central value guiding their lives” (Deneulin 2009, p. 4). Crocker (2008) has perused the issue of deliberative democracy from a capabilities perspective. In particular he explored issues surrounding purpose, conditions, processes, and outcomes. However, when thinking of intergenerational justice, one has to consider how future generations could be included in such deliberative processes and institutions. Such problems

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are intrinsic to the heart of the capability approach and therefore should be mainstreamed rather than having the peripheral role it usually receives. Nussbaum would agree with much of the capabilities framework outlined above. However, her basic question is “When is a society just?” She is concerned with the establishment of basic constitutional principles, and thus her aim is to arrive at a minimum threshold of capabilities that individuals ought to have if a society is to be just. This leads her to a list of ten central human capabilities (her core concept of the good). She sees it as a government’s duty to promote that people have the capabilities on the list; if not, the situation is “both unjust and tragic, in need of urgent attention—even if in other respects things are going well” (Nussbaum 2001, p. 71). Thus, for example, a country with high income or very high human development that does not allow political freedoms would be unjust; consequently, country rankings that do not include political freedoms as a measure of wellbeing are inadequate. This inadequacy applies to the HDI. Clearly, there are natural goods in Rawls’ sense; some people are brighter than others, and some are born with severe autism and are therefore not able to lead a ‘fully human life’ in Nussbaum’s terms, though they might think differently. However, “what a government can aim to deliver is the social basis of these capabilities” (Nussbaum 2001, p. 81, emphasis in the original). To be without one of the capabilities on the list means not having full human dignity and thus the absence of one capability cannot be made up for by having more of another. Consequently, cost-benefit analysis is of limited applicability (Nussbaum 2001). Nussbaum’s list is as follows (Table 1.1). The list is referred to in several parts of the book, and in much related work, so is reproduced here in full. To establish the threshold, Nussbaum begins with the basic idea of human flourishing, which is inspired by an Aristotelian/Marxian notion of fully human functioning and having dignity. This has led her to cross-cultural discussions to produce a list of capabilities, which is open to revision (Nussbaum 2001, 2006). The list is then tested in a Socratic fashion to reach a reflective equilibrium (Nussbaum 2001). It is seen as being able to form an overlapping consensus in the Rawlsian sense that: People may sign on to this conception [her list] as the freestanding moral core of a political conception, without accepting any particular metaphysical view of the world, any particular comprehensive ethical or religious view, or even any particular view of the person or human nature. Nussbaum (2001, p. 76)

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Table 1.1  Nussbaum’s central human capabilities 1. Life. Being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length; not dying prematurely, or before one’s life is so reduced as to be not worth living 2. Bodily Health. Being able to have good health, including reproductive health; to be adequately nourished; to have adequate shelter 3. Bodily Integrity. Being able to move freely from place to place; to be secure against violent assault, including sexual assault and domestic violence; having opportunities for sexual satisfaction and for choice in matters of reproduction 4. Senses, Imagination, and Thought. Being able to use the senses, to imagine, think, and reason—and to do these things in a “truly human” way, a way informed and cultivated by an adequate education, including, but by no means limited to, literacy and basic mathematical and scientific training. Being able to use imagination and thought in connection with experiencing and producing works and events of one’s own choice, religious, literary, musical, and so forth. Being able to use one’s mind in ways protected by guarantees of freedom of expression with respect to both political and artistic speech, and freedom of religious exercise. Being able to have pleasurable experiences and to avoid non-beneficial pain 5. Emotions. Being able to have attachments to things and people outside ourselves; to love those who love and care for us, to grieve at their absence; in general, to love, to grieve, to experience longing, gratitude, and justified anger. Not having one’s emotional development blighted by fear and anxiety. (Supporting this capability means supporting forms of human association that can be shown to be crucial in their development.) 6. Practical Reason. Being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one’s life. (This entails protection for the liberty of conscience and religious observance.) 7. Affiliation. A. Being able to live with and toward others, to recognize and show concern for other human beings, to engage in various forms of social interaction; to be able to imagine the situation of another. (Protecting this capability means protecting institutions that constitute and nourish such forms of affiliation, and also protecting the freedom of assembly and political speech.) B. Having the social bases of self-respect and non-humiliation; being able to be treated as a dignified being whose worth is equal to that of others. This entails provisions of non-discrimination on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, caste, religion, national origin 8. Other Species. Being able to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature 9. Play. Being able to laugh, to play, to enjoy recreational activities 10. Control over One’s Environment A. Political. Being able to participate effectively in political choices that govern one’s life; having the right of political participation, protections of free speech and association B. Material. Being able to hold property (both land and movable goods), and having property rights on an equal basis with others; having the right to seek employment on an equal basis with others; having the freedom from unwarranted search and seizure. In work, being able to work as a human being, exercising practical reason and entering into meaningful relationships of mutual recognition with other workers Nussbaum (2006, pp. 76–78)

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As Forst has stated, it is empirically unclear if such a consensus exists or can be established. “Having opportunities for sexual satisfaction and for choice in matters of reproduction” seems highly problematic given the diversity of views on such matters. I would not be the first to point to Nussbaum’s lack of dialogue with others concerning their definition of the good life and the priorities that people make (Alkire 2005; Clark 2005; Okin 2003). That being said, the list has been widely adopted and adapted by authors in a variety of contexts and has found diverse empirical applications (e.g., Boni and Walker 2012; Comim and Nussbaum 2014; Holland 2014; Walker 2006). Because Nussbaum’s aim in principle is to achieve an overlapping consensus, she goes beyond her intuitions and discussions with others to engage in a form of contractualism. A theory of justice would undeniably be very weak if it only concerned an individual’s intuitions and discussions with relatively few people and did not attempt gain further agreement. This goes too for the specification of the capabilities on the list which often appear sketchy. Does “Being able to move freely from place to place.” “only” concern the important freedoms of being able to leave the house or use public transport in safety, or does it also include migration and flying? However, the role of such indications is as agenda points for deliberation, adaptation and application in particular contexts of research or policy negotiation. As with Sen, it is not clear how future generations are brought into the picture when deciding what the central capabilities actually entail. Obviously, future generations simply cannot enter into any dialogues. Yet, as Watene (2013) maintains, we should not automatically assume that future generations will allow people to have as many children as they wish. Thus, the necessity of engaging with future generations’ possible views can be crucial to the list Nussbaum offers. Issues surrounding intergenerational justice are not peripheral. Both Sen and Nussbaum have been concerned with fundamental questions, whether they be in terms of identifying poverty as capability deprivation, manifest injustices or establishing a threshold of basic justice. There has been an increasing interest within the approach at examining the limits to capability expansion. Breena Holland (2008) has introduced the notion of capability ceilings to make clear that putting resources into some capabilities will undermine other, including threshold, capabilities. Such ceilings help us to establish whose capabilities are to be limited and why. Thus protecting “mobility” may in some cases undermine, for example, bodily health as a consequence of climate change. Thus, a ceiling should be estab-

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lished to avoid this. Ingrid Robeyns is developing a limitarian approach to distributive justice which argues that it is immoral to possess more resources than are required to live a fully flourishing life (Robeyns 2016). This, she argues is justified because having too much wealth undermines democratic processes, and that it is immoral to have unmet urgent needs conceived in capability terms. A further constraint relates to the way people’s purchasing behaviour affects the environment; spending money on solar panels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can be considered positive whilst flying to far distant lands to make a twenty minute presentation at a conference is a questionable moral rightness if the same presentation could be made via the Internet (examples mine). Drawing on the work of Scanlon and Forst, Crabtree (2013, 2018 and this volume) is advancing a contractualist legitimate freedom approach which rules out certain capabilities and functionings as being reasonably rejectable on the basis of not being justifiable to others, including future generations. Furthermore, in so far as environmental limits are normative and not just scientific (Rockström et al. 2009), they should be based on reasonable rejection. Thus a 2°C limit on dangerous climate change ignores the question as to who it is dangerous for. Those already experiencing the consequences of climate change may already find it dangerous and reasonably reject the actions of others which cause cyclones to destroy their houses, lands and livelihoods. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s metaphor of “family resemblance”, we might characterise the capability approach as being part of a family in which members’ features may look like those of others but also differ in important ways. Indeed, there are family disputes, such as whether or not there should be a canonical list of basic or central capabilities (for example see Nussbaum 2001). Other family members develop their own research programs.

1.3   The Human Security Approach The capability family is also related to others within the human development approach, broadly conceived, namely human rights, basic needs and human security (in some work there is a tendency to treat the capability and human development approaches as one and the same). The latter is particularly important for this volume as shown in the chapters by Gasper and Rocca and by Gasper. The 1994 Human Development Report both outlined a view of sustainable human development (Chap. 1) which was largely based on Anand and Sen (1994) and introduced the human security approach in its Chap. 2.

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Anand and Sen’s (1994) background paper was later revised and published in 2000. The work is interesting in several respects: it provides the background to the first chapter of the HDR, it is the only peer reviewed work Sen has produced on sustainable development, it shows a movement from a weak sustainability position in the 1994 version to a strong sustainability approach in a revised version. The issue is left to further research (Anand and Sen 2000). Lastly, it was left as that. Sen did not integrate sustainability into his other work. The 2000 article explicitly states that the authors only make a small contribution to the topic. In general, the argument advanced repeats the criticisms of the income approach and income or resource-based approaches to sustainability such as that of Solow. Secondly, it argues that we cannot sustain absolutely everything (thus against the position known as very strong sustainability). Thirdly, it argues that many goods, such as different species of fish, are substitutable and therefore we should not worry if some of them disappear, but that other goods, such as clean air, are not fungible. What we should sustain is a general capacity to support well-being conceptualized in capability terms. As already observed, this concern for future generations is no longer explicit and highlighted in, for example, An Uncertain Glory (Drèze and Sen 2013). Human Security analysis was introduced by Mahbub ul Haq and associates into the 1994 Report, which was written against the background of the United Nations’ World Summit for Social Development to be held in Copenhagen in 1995. Human Security is defined in contrast to security of national territory and national policy interests—shifting attention from nuclear security to human security, for example. It was also contrasted with human development. Human security entails freedom from chronic threats such as hunger, disease and repression and protection from sudden and harmful disturbances in everyday life (HDR 1994, p. 23). It implies enacting choices in safety. Furthermore, it is concretized, and thus made operational, to include economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community and political security which goes beyond the emphasis on education and health as reflected in the Human Development Index. For Gasper, Chap. 6 of this volume, human security also has an ontological dimension. The attention to threats and disturbances arises from an explanatory ontology of interconnectedness. This explanatory perspective, relevant at personal, local, national and global levels, provides also part of the basis necessary for climate change ethics and public action, for recognizing shared life experiences, problems and life challenges (Gomez et al. 2013).

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There is a strong concern with societal arrangements within the capability approach. Sen talks about the centrality of being able to participate in society and go without shame and Nussbaum sees affiliation as a central capability. There is also a more radical branch of the family which is more clearly highly critical of social structures than the phrase “able to participate in society” might suggest (see for example, Deneulin (2008, 2014), Robeyns (2017), Crabtree (2018), Biggeri and Ferrannini (2014) and Drèze and Sen (2013)). Gasper would agree with such criticisms but his emphasis here is on a notion of humanity as a “community of fate” that suggests stronger bonds, in terms of perception of self and of others, than only in regard to autonomous individuals each being able to participate in society. Gasper argues that such an understanding of shared humanity and shared predicament is necessary to motivate action on climate change—something, he argues, that Sen and Nussbaum’s approaches do not sufficiently capture.

1.4   Outline of the Book In Chap. 2 of this book, Jérôme Pelenc and Jean-Luc Dubois link up the notion of critical natural capital with the capability approach, providing a dynamic model which connects ecosystem services, capabilities choices and functionings which in turn feedback into ecosystems. The chapter embraces a strong sustainability approach. Whist traditional economists tend to see all goods as substitutable (as assumed in the concept of weak sustainability, where loss of some types of good is deemed compensated for by increase of other types), a strong sustainability approach denies this; because, for example, various forms of natural capital such as oceans and forests have different functions which cannot replace each other. Unlike Sen, Pelenc and Dubois specify critical natural capital as necessary to ensure sustainability between generations, an argument which is much more specific than “providing the general capacity for well-being”. Building natural capital into the capability perspective ensures that it is taken into account when deliberations take place concerning decisions about leading the lives we value. In Chap. 3 Crabtree examines how various indicators of sustainability can or cannot be combined with the capability approach. He also examines the scientific credibility, policy usefulness and legitimacy of the various indicators. Like Pelenc and Dubois, Crabtree rejects the weak sustainability approach represented by the World Bank’s measure of Adjusted Net

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Savings as it maintains that all capital is fungible, yet it makes little sense to say that we can make up for rainforest depletion by increasing education expenditure. Ecological Footprint analysis has proved popular in users of the capability approach as it is possible to use it as a handy tool together with the human development index. Together they may provide a quick guide to sustainability and have respectable theoretical backgrounds namely critical natural capital and the capability approach. However, Ecological Footprint analysis falls short on a number of grounds. Firstly, it is insufficiently comprehensive and leaves out major environmental issues such as water and secondly it makes little sense, as with the HDI, to say that two environmental indicators are substitutable. Fish stocks and carbon emissions are two separate and non-substitutable entities. The chapter then goes on to discuss the planetary boundaries approach, now in its second version. Whilst it is agreed that all the boundaries are important actual indicators, there are questions concerning the appropriate boundary levels (and whether they should be planetary or regional); further, the changes between versions one and two are all problematic on scientific grounds and are therefore of questionable policy value despite the approach’s salience and its heuristic value. Although it is not possible to deal with all the sustainable development goals, the chapter examines the interrelationships between them and discusses two goals—life on land and life below water— in greater depth. It is argued that one of the benefits of the SDGs is that they take individual indicators rather than composite ones. However, the indicators though scientifically based are often sufficiently vague as to make the policy requirements unclear despite the apparent large-scale international commitment. Finally, drawing on Scanlonian contractualism, the chapter questions the ethical legitimacy of the various indicators. Crabtree argues that a declared planetary boundary relating to climate change can be reasonably rejected as too lax if what the level specified as dangerous means that some people’s homeland has already disappeared. Masson, Rauschmayer, Lessmann and Gutwald (Chap. 4) turn to the concept of intergenerational justice. They argue that the politically influential idea of sustainable development is closely tied to the concept of intergenerational justice without clarifying what exactly is to be sustained across time and space. In developing an account of human development, the capability approach provides a partial theory of justice with a focus on intragenerational justice. The chapter first offers insights into the history of modern sustainable development. Focusing on the ends rather than means of sustainable development, it secondly analyses the appropriateness

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of using capabilities as sustainability goals. The chapter then examines how the Capability Approach could contribute to extending an intra- to an intergenerational theory of justice, before providing a summary of the contribution that the capability approach could make to the discussion on sustainable development. Chapter 5 by Des Gasper and Simone Rocca asks how far have humanistic principles penetrated ‘policy-relevant’ discussion of climate change and whether or not changes are assessed in terms of their impacts on people, let alone assessed in terms of a full range of values that people have good reason to hold. The chapter considers some major assessments of climate change, to see how far such humanistic principles are present. It looks especially at the most recent IPCC General Assessment Report (Pachauri et al. 2014) and at the debates about how significant are the impacts of rich individuals’ lifestyles on mortality and morbidity of less fortunate people around the world. It identifies mechanisms by which interests of vulnerable low-income people are regularly marginalized, even when the assessments are made by agencies supposedly accountable within the United Nations system with its commitments to universal human rights and human security (United Nations 1948, 2012). Mainstream climate assessments have not focused on impacts on the lives of all people worldwide. They have remained dominated by approaches derived on the one hand from natural sciences and on the other hand from the self-­referential precautions of wealthy nations and the interests of their corporations and more wealthy inhabitants. Often very ‘conservative’ estimates (meaning in this case demonstrably too low) of climate change and especially of its impacts are adopted; for example, because insufficient q ­ uantitative data is available on the diseases of the poor since they have been little studied or not studied in a prescribed fashion. Such aspects are then omitted from the estimates. The chapter turns to consider how such marginalization and exclusion could be countered. It reflects on why the human development and capability approach has had relatively little impact in climate change discussions. Arguably, an unbalanced interpretation of or emphasis on ‘freedom’ in some human development work has brought a relative neglect of other essential ‘human’ content. From examination of the influential 2015 Papal encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, the chapter asks whether building attention to the excluded requires ontological reorientation of sorts not yet found in much of human development discourse. Religious discourses, however, will not work with or across many audiences; secular versions that provide similar reorientations are needed. The chapter therefore poses the question

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whether more penetration and impact have been or can be achieved by human rights and human security analyses than by a focus on capability theory. The following chapter then examines what robust variants of human rights and human security thinking might offer. Chapter 6 by Des Gasper first looks further at underlying causes of the marginalization of impacts on poor people in much climate change research and debate. Ideologies of nationalism and visions of problem-­ eliminating never-ending economic growth lead to screening out of the negative implications of contemporary consumption and production patterns. To change such perspectives, the capability approach is not sufficient, especially in strongly liberal versions which focus only on increasing the range of attainable valued options. An adequate response to climate change requires ethical and policy languages that help to motivate and mobilize worldwide for a move beyond unlimited economic expansion, to an acceptance of finitude and a rethinking of the contents of ‘human’ and ‘well-being’. A human rights perspective can make clear that unacceptable injustice is occurring against future generations and already born children. Such a perspective needs to be placed within a framework of human security thinking that explores and articulates more fully what is ‘human’— including vulnerability and mutual dependence, connection to future generations and dependence on a global ecology. The proposal is that human rights thinking brings a normative ontology that champions and entrenches the value of all human persons, while human security thinking incorporates this and complements it with an explanatory ontology that recognises interconnectedness, finitude and their implications. The concluding chapter examines the relationships between the sustainable development goals and the capability and human security approaches, asking in particular what role the capability and human security approaches can play given that the SDGs may dominate the development debate until at least 2030. Furthermore, the SDGs are also multidimensional in nature and more comprehensive than the capability or human security approaches have so far been in concrete terms. It is argued that the approaches can play the role of agitators and critics within operationalization and evolution of the SDGs: the SDGs often ignore the quality of social structures, are watered down when it comes to targets and, in practice, often ignore the specific interests of the local level. Indeed, the approaches may ask if sustainable development is to be understood in the way the SDGs do at all rather than understanding sustainability as being in a more direct relation to nature. Moreover, the approaches can

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convey essential theoretical insights, for example concerning constitutional rights, ‘the right to the city’, and an ontology of a ‘community of fate’. Brining the chapters together, the conclusion suggests overlaps and differences among the capability, human security approaches and the SDGs.

Notes 1. It is to be lamented that the rights of non-human animals, which Nussbaum has written extensively about (e.g. Nussbaum 2006) are not included in this book. 2. A further problem arises in that originally Sen used the singular “capability” rather than the plural “capabilities”, whereas Nussbaum speaks of her “capabilities approach”. The singular version referred also to “a capability set” which is a set of potential functionings. The plural and singular forms now tend to be used without much differentiation between the two (see Robeyns (2005) or Gasper (2002, section 4) for further discussion).

References Alkire, S. (2005). Valuing Freedoms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anand, S., & Sen, A. (2000). Human Development and Economic Sustainability. World Development, 28(12), 2029–2049. Biggeri, M., & Ferrannini, A. (2014). Sustainable Human Development: A New Territorial and People-Centred Perspective. London: Springer. Boni, A., & Walker, M. (Eds.). (2012). Human Development and Capabilities: Re-imagining the University of the XXI Century. London: Routledge. Clark, D. A. (2005). The Capability Approach: Its Development, Critiques and Recent Advances e Capability Approach: Its Development, Critiques and Recent Advances, 1–18. Retrieved from http://economics.ouls.ox.ac. uk/14051/1/gprg-wps-032.pdf. Comim, F., & Nussbaum, M. (Eds.). (2014). Capabilities, Gender, Equality: Toward Fundamental Entitlements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crabtree, A. (2013). Sustainable Development: Does the Capability Approach Have Anything to Offer? Outlining a Legitimate Freedom Approach. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 14(1), 40–57. Crabtree, A. (2018). Sustainability and Climate Change: Human Development and Human Responsibilities. In Routledge Handbook of Development Ethics (pp. 209–225). London: Routledge. Crocker, D.  A. (2008). Ethics of Global Development: Agency, Capability, and Deliberative Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Deneulin, S. (2008). Beyond Individual Freedom and Agency: Structures of Living Together in Sen’s Capability Approach to Development. In S. Alkire, F. Comim, & M. Qizilbash (Eds.), The Capability Approach: Concepts, Measures and Application (pp.  105–124). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511492587. Deneulin, S. (2009). Advancing Human Development: Values, Groups, Power and Conflict. Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) Working Papers; No. WeD Working Paper 09/49. Bath: University of Bath/Wellbeing in Developing Countries Research Group. Deneulin, S. (2014). Wellbeing, Justice and Development Ethics. London: Routledge. Drèze, J., & Sen, A. (2013). An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gasper, D. (2002). Is Sen’s Capability Approach an Adequate Basis for Considering Human Development? Review of Political Economy, 14(4), 435–461. Gomez, O.A., Gasper, D., & Mine, Y. (2013). Good Practices in Addressing Human Security Through National Human Development Reports. Report for UNDP Human Development Report Office and UN Trust Fund for Human Security. HDRO Occasional Paper. Retrieved from http://hdr.undp.org/ sites/default/files/good_practices.pdf. Holland, B. (2008). Ecology and the Limits of Justice: Establishing Capability Ceilings in Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach. Journal of Human Development, 9(3), 401–425. Holland, B. (2014). Allocating the Earth: A Distributional Framework for Protecting Capabilities in Environmental Law and Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Khader, S., & Kosko, S. (2018). ‘Reason to Value,’ Perfectionism, and the Process Aspect of Freedom. In L. Keleher & S. Kosko (Eds.), Agency, Democracy, and Participation in Global Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cambridge. Nussbaum, M.  C. (2001). Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nussbaum, M. (2003). Capabilities as Fundamental Entitlements: Sen and Social Justice. Feminist Economics, 9(2–3), 33–59. Nussbaum, M.  C. (2006). Frontiers of Justice. Cumberland, RI: Harvard University Press. Nussbaum, M.  C. (2011). Creating Capabilities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nussbaum, M.  C. (2019). Preface: Amartya Sen and the HDCA. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 20(2), 124–126. Okin, S.  M. (2003). Poverty, Well-Being, and Gender: What Counts, Who’s Heard? Philosophy & Public Affairs, 31(3), 289–316.

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Pachauri, R. K., Allen, M. R., Barros, V. R., Broome, J., Cramer, W., Christ, R., ... & Dubash, N. K. (2014). Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. Robeyns, I. (2005). The Capability Approach: A Theoretical Survey. Journal of Human Development, 6(1), 93–117. Robeyns, I. (2016). Having Too Much. In NOMOS LVI: Wealth. Yearbook of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy. New  York: New  York University Press. Robeyns, I. (2017). Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-examined. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin III, F.  S., Lambin, E. F., …, & Nykvist, B. (2009). A Safe Operating Space for Humanity. Nature, 461(7263), 472. Sen, A. (1993). Capability and Well-Being. In M. Nussbaum & A. Sen (Eds.), The Quality of Life. New York: Oxford University Press. Sen, A. (1994). Sustainable Human Development: Concepts and Priorities. United Nations Development Programme. Sen, A. K. (2009). The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A/RES/217(III). New York and Paris: United Nations. United Nations. (1994). Human Development Report 1994. Retrieved May 27, 2019, from http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/255/ hdr_1994_en_complete_nostats.pdf. United Nations. (2012). General Assembly Resolution on Human Security. A/RES/66/290. Retrieved from www.un.org/humansecurity/content/unsecretary-general-reports-human-security Walker, M. (2006). Higher Education Pedagogies. A Capabilities Approach. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Watene, K. (2013). Nussbaum’s Capability Approach and Future Generations. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 14(1), 21–39.

CHAPTER 2

Human Development and Strong Sustainability: A Mutual Dialogue Jérôme Pelenc and Jean-Luc Dubois

2.1   Introduction The inclusion of an ecological dimension within the Capability Approach (CA) is necessary if we are to conceptualize sustainable human development. Indeed, the lack of such a dimension can be considered as a major drawback when it comes to sustainability (Sneddon et al. 2006; Rauschmayer and Leβmann 2011; Lessmann and Rauschmayer 2013). We also need to construct a unique framework that embraces both issues of inter and intragenerational justice. Indeed, according to Neumayer (2012), sustainability discourses tend to emphasize intergenerational justice at the expense of intragenerational justice. In contrast, human development and the CA underestimate issues of intergenerational justice, especially with regard to the effects of human activity on the natural environment (Lessmann and Rauschmayer 2013; Schultz et al. 2013; Peeters et al. 2013). Albeit that the 2011 Human Development Report (HDR) focuses on the link between

J. Pelenc (*) University of Toulouse 2, UMR LISST, Toulouse, France J.-L. Dubois French Research Institute for Sustainable Development, UMI Resiliences, Bondy, France © The Author(s) 2020 A. Crabtree (ed.), Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38905-5_2

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sustainability and equity, both come across as being separate issues. Indeed, according to Peeters et al. (2013), in this report, human development is somewhat overemphasized; sustainability less so. The literature from the field of human development on the one side, and the field of environmental sustainability on the other, have long been separated (Neumayer 2012). We argue in this chapter that time has come to reconciliate them. However, it is necessary to specify that when dealing with sustainability issue, we have to distinguish between a ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ conception. Weak sustainability is built on the assumption that the various forms of capital (manufactured, economic, financial, social, human, natural, etc.) are substitutable. In the case of strong sustainability, this substitutability is rejected and the crucial importance of certain elements of natural capital is recognized i.e. these elements cannot be replaced when depleted, otherwise jeopardizing human development (Ekins et al. 2003). The 2011 Human Development Report (UNDP 2011) argues that the human development field should adopt a strong sustainability position. However, making human development consistent with strong sustainability requirements implies to overcome some current conceptual shortcomings of the CA such as the integration of an ecological dimension (Holland 2008, 2014; Pelenc and Dubois 2011; Voget-Kleschin 2013; Schultz et  al. 2013; Peeters et  al. 2015a, among others) and dynamic aspect (Ballet et al. 2011). The operationalisation of strong sustainability and particularly of its core concept of critical natural capital also requires to overcome some shortcomings notably regarding the analysis of the well-being people can (or cannot) derive from their natural environment (Carpenter et al. 2008) and regarding the issue of intragenerational justice (Farley 2012). Indeed, as several authors (De Groot et al. 2003; Ballet et al. 2005) point out, if we are to guarantee the sustainable use of our (critical) natural capital, it is essential to address not only the ecological dimension, but the social and economic dimensions too. The goal of this chapter is therefore to demonstrate that a mutual dialogue between human development and strong sustainability helps overcome certain limitations in both fields. First, we demonstrate the significance of using the concepts of critical natural capital and ecosystem services to overcome some shortcomings of the CA relative to environmental sustainability. Incorporating an ecological dimension within the field of human development helps deal with issues of intergenerational justice. This helps us to bring human development into line with the

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requirements of strong sustainability. Second, we demonstrate the ­relevance of looking at the critical natural capital and ecosystem services through the CA in order to make strong sustainability more consistent with human development requirements. Such a perspective will help strong sustainability better tackle intragenerational issues of environmental justice and better deal with the social definition of the elements of natural capital that can be considered as critical. The chapter is structured as follows. The first section introduces the substance of the CA and the main limitations of human development relative to environmental sustainability. The second section presents the main features of strong sustainability. In the third section we demonstrate how the concept of critical natural capital and ecosystem services can be used to integrate an ecological dimension into the CA. In the fourth section we show how looking at critical natural capital and ecosystem services through the lens of the CA leads to a better understanding of the well-being people can (or cannot) derive from it. Finally, in a more tentative fashion, we highlight the potential for future research of a combination between the CA, critical natural capital, and public deliberation in defining sustainable pathways of human development.

2.2   The Capability Approach: A Framework for Assessing Well-Being This first section presents an overview of the CA, which provides the analytical framework for this chapter. It also examines the limitations of the CA and human development in relation to the issue of environmental sustainability. 2.2.1   Main Features of the Capability Approach In the CA, well-being is assessed in terms of the freedoms and opportunities that allow people to lead lives they have reason to value i.e. to achieve what they want ‘to do’ and what they want ‘to be’. Thus, human development is defined as the process of extending the real freedoms that people enjoy i.e. enhancing people’s capabilities (Sen 1999). Capabilities represent the various possibilities that a person has to choose from, depending on his or her values, in order to attain desired life-styles. Capabilities consist of a bundle of achievable functionings. Functionings can be elementary i.e. related to nutrition, health, life expectancy, or more complex,

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such as taking part in the life of the community and having self-respect (Sen 1999). The following figure, adapted from Robeyns (2005), and Bonvin and Farvaque (2008), illustrates the logical structure of the CA. In this figure, resources include endowments in a broad sense (e.g. manufactured goods and services, assets, income, free time, tools, but also non-material goods such as education, human capital and social capital). Entitlements have to be understood as rights to access the resources that could be converted into capabilities and the real possibility of exercising rights. In addition, Sen has observed that people and societies typically differ in their capacity to convert resources into functionings. They rely on internal conversion factors, which include personal characteristics (i.e. physical and psychological characteristics, human capital, experience, etc.) and on external factors related to the social context (institutions, customs, public goods, etc.), but also on environmental conditions (changes in climate, changes in river flow, etc.) (Robeyns 2005). It is important to note that while the concept of capability is related to freedom of choice, the concept of functioning is related to the achievement of well-being. Hence, the capability concept can encompass both potential and achieved choices (Reboud 2008). Indeed, by distinguishing between potential and achieved functionings, it is possible to highlight a person’s true range of choices: acting freely and being able to choose lead directly to well-being (Sen 1992). Therefore, freedom of choice takes centre stage in the definition and improvement of human well-being. In sum, the CA provides a sophisticated explanation of the role of goods and services in achieving well-being, but it does not concern itself enough with ecological constraints and, consequently, with environmental sustainability (Sneddon et  al. 2006; Rauschmayer and Leβmann 2011; Lessmann and Rauschmayer 2013). As is noted by Schultz et al. (2013), the CA withdraws from the fragility and scarcity of ecosystems because it neither ignores them nor acknowledges them explicitly. As a result, the current conceptualization of the CA makes it difficult to assess well-being in a fully sustainable way (Ballet et al. 2011; Rauschmayer and Leβmann 2011; Lessmann and Rauschmayer 2013). 2.2.2  Human Development and Environmental Sustainability In his writings, Sen never clearly states what kind of environmental sustainability should be promoted. He remains ambiguous, oscillating between strong and weak sustainability (Neumayer 2012).1 It is only in 2011 that

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the HDR set its stance: “Given the principles underlying the human development approach, the inclination to give equal weight to the well-being of all generations and the centrality of risk and uncertainty, our position leans towards that of strong sustainability” (UNDP 2011, p.  17). In order to make the CA a relevant evaluative framework for human well-­being, in a strong sustainability perspective, it is crucial to overcome four limitations. First, even if some studies have tried to establish the link between ecosystems and the CA (Duraiappah 1998, 2004; Polishchuk and Rauschmayer 2012), there is an ambiguity about how environmental goods and services should be specifically used to generate capabilities. We argue that when analyzing people’s well-being, ecosystem services provided by natural capital should be included more systematically in the human development framework. Second, according to Peeters et al. (2013), the interconnectedness people have with their natural environment is not properly acknowledged within human development. Sen struggles to accept that human activity should not be considered as external to ecosystems, and that ecosystems provide us with life support. Human development and the CA would benefit from unequivocally rejecting the interpretation of capabilities as a collection of disembodied freedoms (Peeters et al. 2013). Concretely, this means that a high quality of life ought to be ensured while sustaining the carrying capacity of the ecosphere through respecting its biophysical constraints (ibid.). And then there is the need for human development to recognize humanity’s primary dependence on the natural environment. Third, in his last book, The Idea of Justice, Sen defines sustainable development as “The preservation, and (when possible) expansion, of the substantive freedoms and capabilities of people today ‘without compromising the capability of future generations’ to have similar—or more—freedom” (Sen 2009, pp. 251–252). Crabtree (2013) notes that this definition highlights the fact that Sen recognizes our present lifestyles as causing potentially negative environmental repercussions. The problem is that the CA was originally conceived as a static framework for the assessment of well-being (Lessmann 2011; Rauschmayer and Leβmann 2011; Lessmann and Rauschmayer 2013) and this is a major drawback when examining issues of intergenerational justice. Indeed, the basic CA structure (cf. Fig. 2.1) is both static and linear; it does not take subsequent generations into consideration (Lessmann and Rauschmayer 2013; Schultz et  al. 2013). Consequently, the need to add a dynamic dimension to the CA framework is vital if the assessment of well-being is to be consistent with the requirements of strong sustainability.

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Fig. 2.1  The logical structure of the capability approach. (Source: Own)

Fourth, in order to address these previous points we have to accept that the conservation of critical natural capital for future generations should be regarded as a key objective of human development. Indeed, as is demonstrated by Dedeurwaerdere, critical natural capital is related to the freedom of choice of a particular generation. Therefore, it must be conserved if we are to achieve an equitable transmission of freedom of choice across generations. These four limitations can be overcome by integrating an ecological dimension into the CA as it is demonstrated in the third section. But, first we must present the main features of strong sustainability and its core component: critical natural capital.

2.3   Strong Sustainability and Critical Natural Capital This section characterizes the two main forms of sustainability: weak and strong. It then identifies the relationships between critical natural capital and ecosystem services.

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2.3.1  Weak Sustainability Versus Strong Sustainability It is the emphasis on natural capital that allows us to make a distinction between weak sustainability and strong sustainability. Weak sustainability assumes that natural capital and other forms of capital,2 especially manufactured capital, are substitutable. There is therefore no real difference between the kinds of well-being each type of capital generates (Ekins et al. 2003; Neumayer 2003; Neumayer 2012). The only thing that matters is the total value of the aggregate stock of capital, which should be at least maintained, or ideally added to, for the sake of future generations (Neumayer 2012; Ekins et al. 2003). From this perspective: “it does not matter whether the current generation uses up non-renewable resources or dumps CO2  in the atmosphere, as long as enough machineries, roads and ports are built in compensation” (Neumayer 2003, p. 1). Such an assumption leads to the maximization of monetary compensation for environmental degradation. Weak sustainability assumes that technological progress continually provides technical solutions for environmental problems caused by the increased production of goods and services (Ekins et al. 2003). In contrast to this weak view of sustainability, some authors have developed a strong conception of sustainability (Noël and O’Connor 1998; Ekins et al. 2003; Chiesura and de Groot 2003; De Groot et al. 2003). In their view, natural capital cannot be substituted by manufactured capital. Instead, natural capital is seen as being complementary to manufactured capital and other forms of capital in the production of human well-being (Brand 2009). Authors writing on strong sustainability have demonstrated that natural capital cannot be perceived as a mere stock of resources. Rather, natural capital represents a set of complex systems; these systems consist of evolving biotic and abiotic elements which interact in such a way that they determine the capacity of an ecosystem to provide human society with a wide array of functions and services (Ekins et al. 2003; De Groot et al. 2003; Brand 2009). By subscribing to this definition we can identify several reasons for the non-substitutability of natural capital. First, there is a qualitative difference between manufactured capital and natural capital. Manufactured capital is reproducible and its destruction is rarely irreversible, whereas the consumption of natural capital is often irreversible, for instance, the extinction of a species is irreversible while the destruction of material goods or infrastructure is not (Ekins et al. 2003). Second, since manufactured capital requires natural capital for its production, it can

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never be a complete substitute for the biophysical structures of natural capital (ibid.). Third, due to our lack of knowledge as to how natural systems function, we cannot be sure how the destruction of natural capital affects human well-being (Dietz and Neumayer 2007). Fourth, there is an ethical argument for non-substitutability: increasing future consumption cannot be considered as an appropriate substitute for the corresponding losses in natural capital (Dietz and Neumayer 2007). In summary, the strong sustainability approach rejects the idea of natural capital substitutability and holds that certain dimensions of natural capital are essential because of their unique contribution to human well-­being. Thus, their depletion cannot be compensated for by investing in other forms of capital, such as manufactured capital or even human capital (Neumayer 2012). These dimensions or elements that could be critical for human well-being can be conceptualised as ecosystem services provided by natural capital (Brand 2009). This leads us to a definition of the concept of Critical Natural Capital (CNC). According to the existing literature (Noël and O’Connor 1998; Ekins et  al. 2003; Chiesura and de Groot 2003; De Groot et al. 2003; Dietz and Neumayer 2007; Brand 2009) CNC can be defined as a subset of natural capital at a specific geographical scale and characterized by the following features: (1) it performs essential ecosystem services for the well-being of present and future generations; (2) it is strictly non-substitutable regarding its unique contribution to well-being, even by other forms of natural capital; (3) its loss would be irreversible, entailing very high costs due to its vital importance to human well-being, and (4) its destruction raises ethical questions. 2.3.2  Critical Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services Ekins et al. (2003) point out that CNC cannot be directly identified within natural capital because of the complexity of natural systems. In addition, since the functioning of natural systems is seldom linear, they note that it is not appropriate to describe CNC in terms of changes in the overall aggregate stock of natural capital (ibid.). Instead, CNC should be identified through the services that it provides at a particular scale (ibid.) (see Pelenc and Ballet 2015 for an example). In other words, the set of ecosystem services that would be considered as critical in a given context can be used as a proxy for CNC identification.3 Let us now introduce the concept of ecosystem services.

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The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) (2005) broadly defines the concept of ecosystem services as the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. It identifies two main types of ecosystem service: ‘supporting’ and ‘direct’. Supporting services represent the internal functioning of natural systems (e.g. nutrient cycling, primary production, evolving processes, soil formation, water cycling, production of atmospheric oxygen, etc.). These services provide the essential biological support system for life on Earth, thus generating a viable habitat for all living organisms, including human beings. It should be noted that they are necessary for the production of direct ecosystem services. The MEA acknowledges three categories of direct service: provisioning services (food, drinking water, wood for fuel, textiles, etc.), regulating services (water and air quality, climate and pest regulation, pollination, regulation of erosion, etc.) and cultural services (recreation, tourism, aesthetic inspiration, etc.). Now that we have clearly introduced the notion of ecosystem services we can precise our definition of CNC. CNC provides the set of supporting and direct ecosystem services that are considered critical to human well-being at a particular scale. The next section shows how the concepts of CNC and ecosystem services help integrate an ecological dimension into the CA and bring human development it into line with the requirements of strong sustainability.

2.4   Human Development from a Strong Sustainability Perspective The purpose of this section is to demonstrate how an ecological dimension can be integrated into the CA and overcome the four limitations previously identified. First, we will address the role of ecosystem services in the process of generating capabilities. Then we will highlight the particular role of supporting services in affirming fundamental human dependence on natural capital. Finally, we will discuss the possibility of framing the CA within the CNC so as to supplement the linear style of the CA with a dynamic dimension and tackle the issue of intergenerational justice. 2.4.1  Direct Ecosystem Services and Generating Capabilities “All people—rich and poor; living in developing or developed countries— depend on ecosystem services for their well-being” (Duraiappah 2004, p. 10). As shown in the previous section, ecosystem services not only fulfil basic

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physiological needs (clean air, water, food, etc.), they also perform economic and social functions, both at a personal level (freedom, self-­ development, recreation, psychological and physical health, etc.) and at a collective level (social contacts, norms and values, ethics, ideals, cultural identity, etc.) (Chiesura and de Groot 2003). The MEA (2005) identifies four types of contributions that ecosystem services make to human well-­ being: human security, basic materials for a good life, good social relations and freedom of choice or action. The MEA conception of well-being is very close to that of the CA. Indeed, the foregoing examples of the contribution ecosystem services make to human well-being echo Sen’s definition of functionings (e.g. to be well nourished, to take part in the community, etc.). Therefore, according to Polishchuk and Rauschmayer (2012), ecosystem services can be effectively viewed as contributing—in a diversity of ways—to people’s capabilities i.e. the freedom they have to lead lives they have reason to value. In other words, ecosystem services are essential inputs for many of the capabilities required in human development. More specifically, Polishchuk and Rauschmayer (2012) have demonstrated that the effects of ecosystem services on well-being can be analysed as resources, conversion factors and elements from the environmental context affecting personal and social conversion factors over time (see their article for further details). Then we advocate a more systematic integration of ecosystem services provided by natural capital into the human development framework because of their vital contribution to well-being. If Polishchuk and Rauschmayer (2012) provide important information about how direct ecosystem services affect human well-being, they choose to ignore supporting services. However, the crucial importance of supporting ecosystem services also has to be acknowledged within the CA as we shall now discuss. 2.4.2  The Importance of Supporting Ecosystem Services In general, supporting ecosystem services are supposedly ‘not directly’ related to human well-being. However, as mentioned in the previous section, supporting services provide the essential biological support for life on Earth, thus generating a viable habitat for all living organisms, including human beings: “Humanity’s primary dependence on supporting services of natural capital reflects the fact that, however they may perceive themselves, humans are a part of, and not apart from, nature” (adapted from Ekins et al. 2003, p. 170). Human beings gain a part of their being and their

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effective capacities for action from the natural environment (Flipo 2005). This implies that supporting services are in fact more than directly related to human well-being; without them humanity could not exist. Before natural capital contributes to human well-being, it first has to contribute to human existence per se. Natural capital is hence a prerequisite for the existence of capabilities before it becomes a means for their extension. Clearly a minimum of natural capital is needed to achieve ‘healthy’ functioning and service provision (Fisher et al. 2009), and above all, to ensure the possibility of genuine human life on Earth. This implies, as noted by Peeters et al. (2013, p. 59) that “the social goal of enhancing people’s capabilities and well-being should be situated within the biophysical constraints of the ecosphere”. It does not mean that we must reject the moral imperative of expanding human freedoms, but that we must fully acknowledge the biophysical constraints of the ecosphere when dealing with human development (Peeters et  al. 2013),4 especially from a strong sustainability perspective. 2.4.3  A Dynamic Dimension for the Capability Approach The supporting services provided by ecosystems may be jeopardized by human activity if critical thresholds of natural capital are exceeded in such a way that the structures and processes required to maintain ecosystem resilience are too severely disrupted (Brand 2009). In other words, converting ecosystem services into achievements that gradually erodes natural capital leads to an unsustainable human development. The 2011 HDR (UNDP, p. 15) acknowledges that “our development model is bumping up against concrete limits” and that progress in human development may not continue because of environmental degradation. For example, Rockström et al. (2009) identify nine planetary boundaries,5 which if overshot, could be ‘deleterious or catastrophic’ for human beings. They demonstrate that three of these boundaries (climate change, the nitrogen cycle and biodiversity loss) have already been exceeded. According to the MEA (2005), approximately 60% of the ecosystem services examined during this study were found to be degraded or used unsustainably.6 These facts remind us that we are already exceeding several critical thresholds of natural capital at the global scale (e.g. biodiversity loss, nitrogen and phosphorous cycle, climate change, land system changes). Overshooting these thresholds will lead the system into an unsustainable situation where the effects will be irreversible (Ekins et al. 2003; Rockström et al. 2009).

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Irreversibility occurs when current choices are constrained by previous choices. In so far as CNC is not substitutable by other types of capital, its degradation will gradually remove the possibility of achieving essential functionings (e.g. being able to enjoy good air quality, healthy agricultural produce, landscape and recreational services, etc.). And this might lead to a net loss of capabilities for the present generation, and to some extent, future generations. This idea is echoed in the concept of feedback loops as introduced by Schultz et  al. (2013) to account for the potential impacts of achieved functionings on natural capital. According to Schultz et al. (2013), the feedback loop transforms the static CA structure into a dynamic one, as the outcomes of functionings have an impact7 on future capability inputs and environmental contexts. Degrading natural capital beyond certain critical thresholds signifies a greater disruption of supporting services. This implies increasing fluctuations in the flow of direct ecosystem services (e.g. erratic variations in fresh water supply, reduced capacity of food provisioning services, degradation of air quality, loss of soil fertility, depredated landscapes, lost opportunities for recreation and learning from the natural environment, etc.). Regulating services will be affected and may become constraints, hence creating a negative effect on conversion factors. For example, climate change resulting from the disruption of supporting services (notably the carbon cycle) involves extreme changes in regulating services, such as temperature regulation, or changes in rainfall that affect the conversion capacity of people in certain regions. The arguments developed in this paragraph have enabled us to present the following diagram which takes the CA linear structure and places it into the CNC evaluative space (Fig. 2.2). First, this figure reflects the primary dependency of humanity on the natural environment by placing human well-being within the CNC.  The CNC frame represents the limited space for the extension of substantive freedoms and capabilities. The supporting ecosystem services provide ‘direct ecosystem services’ which constitute the interface between natural systems and human well-being. Second, these ‘direct ecosystem services’8 also constitute an essential input for many capabilities. It should be noted that CNC, via certain regulating services, influences the conversion factors. Third, when a person, group or society achieves a functioning, this will have an impact on CNC (illustrated in the figure by the feedback arrows running from the set of achieved functionings towards the supporting services). Achieving functionings that have negative impacts on supporting services will gradually undermine their capacity to provide ‘direct ecosystem ser-

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Critical natural capital: the limited space for human well-being Human well-being: substantive freedom and capabilities

Capability inputs Supporting ecosystem Services (e.g. primary production nutrient cycling, etc.)

Direct ecosystem Services -provisioning -regulating -cultural

Entitlements Conversion factors

Capability Set

Choice

Other types resource

Set of achieved functionings

(manufactured, social, human capital, etc.)

Fig. 2.2  A stylised dynamic representation of the capability approach within a critical natural capital framework. (Source: Own)

vices’.9 Finally, we can infer that CNC (identified via the critical ecosystem services it provides) forms the ecological foundation of capabilities. Hence, the size and quality of CNC is directly related to the real freedom of choice that people enjoy. Framing the CA within CNC helps us understand that the natural environment assumes a key role in shaping the structure of people’s capabilities through the opportunities and constraints that it generates. In other words, depending on its state of conservation10 or degradation, natural capital plays a part in reinforcing or inhibiting the ability of people to build real freedom for themselves, and to choose amongst various types of freedom. This is why capabilities cannot be fully improved or achieved without the ecological dimension being taken into account. 2.4.4  Conserving Critical Natural Capital for Future Generations Adding a dynamic dimension to the CA inevitably leads us to the issue of intergenerational justice i.e. conserving CNC for the sake of future generations. We will demonstrate that the comparative approach to justice

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offered by the CA leads to point out that the conservation of CNC should be considered as a main goal if human development is to become consistent with intergenerational justice. In a CA perspective, the notion of justice is no longer only restricted to the equitable distribution of resources (or basic goods and utility) across generations; justice is also about the transmission of freedom of choice across generations (Ballet et al. 2011). Consequently, what matters is not the transmission of a specific level of aggregate capital stock, but the effort to ensure that the freedom of choice available to future generations will be at least as great as that available to the present generation. As pointed out by Armstrong (2012), Sen dismisses the idea of perfect justice and instead shows a preference for a comparative and deliberative approach firmly rooted in real life. From this perspective there is no need to be able to provide a perfect definition for the level of freedom of choice available to the present generation. It is sufficient to agree on what would constitute a particular injustice towards future generations. According to Dedeurwaerdere it is an illusion to believe that by transmitting the necessary level of aggregate capital stock, technology will allow us to substitute one or other form of manufactured (or financial) capital for all natural capital while preserving the same freedom of choice. The 2011 HDR (UNDP 2011, p. 17) gives the following example: “Today’s generation cannot ask future generations to breathe polluted air in exchange for a greater capacity to produce goods and services. That would restrict the freedom of future generations to choose clean air over more goods and services”. Here, there is no need to provide an exact definition of the present level of freedom of choice to prove that pursuing the degradation of natural capital whilst increasing manufactured and financial capital is an unjust decision in terms of the transmission of the existing freedom of choice to future generations. As we neither know the values nor the challenges that future generations will face (but projections indicate harsher climatic conditions, etc.), preserving the freedom of choice of present and future generations implies a duty to conserve CNC. From this standpoint, the conservation of CNC acquires an intrinsic value within the CA and should be considered as a main goal if human development is to become sustainable on the long run. As a concluding remark for this section, we can say that framing the CA within the CNC helps us grasp the instrumental importance of ecosystem services in generating capabilities, the primary dependence of human well-­ being on the natural environment and the fact that CNC dramatically

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contributes to determining the level of freedom of choice available to a given generation. Consequently, it should be conserved to ensure an equitable transmission of freedom of choice across generations. Integrating an ecological dimension via the concepts of CNC and ecosystem services within the CA has helped us to bring human development into line with the requirements of strong sustainability.

2.5   Strong Sustainability from a Human Development Perspective The goal of this final section is to bring strong sustainability into line with the requirements of human development. To do so, we will analyse the CNC and ecosystem services through the lens of the CA. First, we will identify the shortcomings of CNC and ecosystem services approaches when they are used as proxies to assess interactions between the natural environment and people’s well-being. Second, we will show that looking at ecosystem services via the CA framework helps us understand that ecosystem services cannot be considered simply as benefits. In the light of this result we will investigate issues of intragenerational justice with regard to the well-being people can (or cannot) derive from ecosystem services. Fourth, we will identify the parameters that determine the use of ecosystem services. Finally, we will demonstrate the relevance of the CA when undertaking a social identification of the critical ecosystem services provided by CNC. 2.5.1  Shortcomings of Strong Sustainability When Assessing Well-Being As has been pointed out by several authors (De Groot et al. 2003; Ballet et al. 2005, among others), if we are to guarantee the sustainable use of our critical natural capital, it is essential to address not only the ecological dimension, but the socio-cultural and economic dimensions too. Indeed, defining what constitutes an ecosystem service requires not only our understanding of the structure and dynamics of ecological systems, but also the spatial context (the geographical location), and the societal values and choices (both monetary and non-monetary) available to the various stakeholders (Haines-Young and Potschin 2010). In order to operationalize the CNC and ecosystem service approaches from a human development perspective, the following shortcomings have to be remedied.

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First, according to Farley (2012), when ecosystem services are critical, marginal analysis and monetary valuation are inappropriate tools in the determination of accurate thresholds. The problem is that well-being and poverty are mostly addressed in terms of income, and the well-being people can derive from ecosystem services is mostly assessed via market-like instruments (e.g. payment schemes for ecosystem services, hedonic prices, contingent valuation, etc.). However, ecosystem services often lie outside the market economy (De Groot et al. 2012) and affect human well-being in multidimensional ways (Carpenter et al. 2008). Therefore, new research efforts are needed to understand the effect of changes in ecosystem services on well-being and poverty (ibid.). In other words, there is a need to provide appropriate tools to assess the well-being people obtain from natural capital. Second, according to Farley (2012), it is of crucial importance that we tackle issues of justice in terms of who is entitled to ecosystem services. This implies a need for appropriate methods to identify the beneficiaries of ecosystem services. Moreover, the use of concepts such as ‘non-­substitutable’ and ‘irreplaceable’ by proponents of strong sustainability raises a number of fundamental questions, such as, Irreplaceable to what end? And for whom? (Chiesura and de Groot 2003). Therefore, in order to avoid exacerbating already existing inequalities, it is important that we identify individual and group vulnerabilities arising from the use of natural capital. Third, according to Daily et al. (2009), developing the credibility of ecosystem service approaches requires an understanding of stakeholders’ decision-making processes. However, only a few publications have linked sustainability and personal decision-making (Rauschmayer et  al. 2011). Hence, it is important to be able to identify the parameters that determine the sustainable use of ecosystem services by individuals, and the constraints individuals may face when using ecosystem services. Fourth, many environmental problems are characterized by incomplete scientific knowledge and the inherent unpredictability of complex systems (Noël and O’Connor 1998; Ekins et al. 2003). This highlights a need to move beyond the technical and generally expert-based calculus of critical thresholds, such as footprint and bio capacity,11 etc. Indeed, we will have to take into account the various contexts and the various stakeholders with their specific value-laden goals and objectives, because both play a crucial role in the definition of sustainability criteria for a given community, city, region or country. This implies that what constitutes an unacceptable loss, and therefore what is critical, has to be decided through

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public deliberation (De Groot et al. 2003). So there is a need for a deliberative approach to the identification of CNC. In sum, appropriate tools are required to explore the role of ecosystem services provided by natural capital when assessing human well-being. The following subsections further explore the potential for looking at CNC and ecosystem services via the CA to remedy the aforementioned shortcomings. 2.5.2  Analysing Ecosystem Services Via the Capability Approach Ballet et al. (2011) and Polishchuk and Rauschmayer (2012), argue that ‘direct ecosystem services’ fall into the category of resources within the CA and that they can therefore be subjected to the same analysis as other types of resources, such as manufactured goods and services. However, from a strong sustainability perspective we have seen that natural capital has to be considered as complementary to other forms of capital, so in the same vein we can argue that manufactured goods and services, and social and human capital, are complementary to direct ecosystem services in deriving well-being. Consequently, in order to derive capabilities from direct ecosystem services, people need other types of resources (e.g. manufactured goods and services, human and social capital) entitlements and appropriate conversion factors. In sum, Fischer and Eastwood (2016) demonstrate that, in a sense, ecosystem services are not ready-made but co-produced by people with their social and ecological environment. Some examples will help explain our logic. For a person who values the functioning of ‘walking in the forest for recreation’, the existence of a forest that can deliver this recreational service is a prerequisite, but it is not sufficient. The person will also need other resources e.g. a means of transportation, the appropriate clothing and ample free time to envisage going for a walk in the first place, etc. If we then look at personal conversion factors, the person will need certain skills and knowledge,12 good health,13 etc. The person will need social conversion factors, such as roads and tracks, the provision of public transport, the signs and waymarks required to avoid getting lost, a favourable cultural context, etc. We have seen that regulating services can play an important role as conversion factors. However, regulating services on their own are not sufficient to ‘convert’ available goods and services into well-being. For example, in order to be able to farm his or her land and obtain high yields, a farmer not only needs the appropriate regulating services (local climate regula-

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tion, soil fertility, etc.), but the appropriate resources, such as agricultural tools and infrastructure, the money to buy them, property rights, a good physical condition (personal conversion factors), training in agronomy (human capital), markets and retail outlets to sell the produce (social conversion factors), etc. Highlighting the complementary role between direct ecosystem services and other resources in the formation of a person’s capability set offers a way to improve our understanding of the limits confronted by people when deriving well-being from ecosystem services. Therefore, in the light of the CA, we can see that ecosystem services cannot be defined as mere benefits people would automatically obtain from their natural environment. But rather, people’s opportunities to derive benefits from an ecosystem depend on a range of personal, social and ecological enabling factors (Fischer and Eastwood 2016). As the next subsection shows, the CA framework helps us to tackle the issue of intragenerational justice when it concerns the level of well-being different groups of people derive from the different categories of ecosystem services. 2.5.3  Exploring the Issue of Intragenerational Justice We will explore the issue of intragenerational justice by looking at some examples of inequalities inherent to the three categories of direct ecosystem services. First, we can look at inequalities inherent to cultural services through the example of a natural area providing recreation services. Visiting a public forest estate is a priori free of charge (no entrance fee), but it does involve indirect costs (fuel, transportation, time off work, etc.), which can prevent some people from enjoying this type of leisure in a natural area. In a large-scale study (n = 817) carried out in the Ile-de-France (region of Paris), Simon et al. discovered that more than a third of respondents never or almost never visited a natural area. These correspondents were on a low income, were relatively young and had a low level of education (ibid.). However, it is not only a lack of resources that can exclude poor people from natural areas. For example, in Fontainebleau, which is the largest forest area in the Paris region, the ‘urban poor’ do not usually go there, even if they live nearby. According to Kalaora (1993), the forest is not part of their daily experience. They do not have the appropriate cultural background to ‘spontaneously’ apprehend the cultural services a natural area can deliver. As Kalaora (1993) demonstrates, the ‘forest’ does not lie

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within the scope of the possible activities and experiences they envisage, because leisure in a natural area is not seen as appropriate to their social class (negative cultural context, self-discrimination). They cannot be forced to go into the forest; people have their own reasons,14 but this example highlights the fact that simply living in an area with rich natural capital does not necessarily mean that one can benefit from it. Second, we can look at inequalities inherent to provisioning services. In ‘developing’ countries, poor or marginalized social groups regularly experience entitlement problems that prevent them from achieving functionings (particularly sustainable functionings) from provisioning ecosystem services, such as gathering food/medicinal herbs/firewood/fresh water and undertaking small scale farming activities (Cleaver and Schreiber 1998; Duraiappah 2004). For instance, deforestation in developing countries is commonly blamed on families who use firewood and charcoal for domestic purposes. In terms of capabilities, it is also clear that this occurs because of the lack of viable alternatives for low-income families. In addition, local communities are often excluded from protected areas. They see their traditional property rights, water irrigation rights contested or disregarded by authorities, large-scale industrial farms and companies. In ‘developed’ countries—and to some extent in ‘developing’ countries as well—the very high price of land (especially near urban areas where the population is concentrated) is a barrier to potentially new small-­scale farmers; it prevents them from deriving capabilities from provisioning services. In France the way the agricultural sector is now organised and the way land is allocated are intended to promote the expansion of large farms and intensive agriculture (which acts as a barrier to the social conversion factor). This hinders the installation or survival of potential smallholders who would like to foster a local, environmentally-friendly form of agriculture, thus depriving them of the opportunity to choose to live a life they value. In this particular case they suffer from resource inequalities due to the high price of land, and socio-political barriers (to conversion factors). Third, we can consider regulating services. The well-being people derive from regulating services depends, among other things, on personal conversion factors. For instance, an asthmatic person will not be able to acquire the same capabilities from a context of poor air quality as a non-­asthmatic person (see Holland 2014 for further details). If we now turn to resources and social conversion factors, marginalized people often live in a poor quality environment that does not provide them with the required regulating ecosystem services (Cornut et al. 2007; Laigle and Tual 2007). Moreover, they often

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live in areas where the air quality is low, where water and soil are affected by pollution, where there are problems related to the treatment of waste and where there is greater exposure to natural hazards (e.g. flooding) than the rest of the population (see Agyeman et al. 2003 for a set of analyses). As long as resources (goods and services, human and social capital, etc.) and entitlements are not distributed equitably within society, and personal conversion factors differ from one person to another (or from one social group to another) and social conversion factors from a context to another, not everyone can derive the same ‘level’ of well-being i.e. the same capabilities, from the same set of ecosystem services. Consequently, comparisons, measures, indicators and public policies based on the ratio of natural capital per capita are not sufficient to assess the interactions between well-­ being and the natural environment. This implies the importance of acknowledging individual and group vulnerabilities when defining critical aspects of natural capital. Indeed, the most vulnerable members of society will generally be the first to be affected by the destruction or dysfunction of natural capital, such as climate change, drought, floods, loss of soil fertility, degradation of water and air quality, loss of arable land, etc. and they are generally less able to counter environmental degradation, as has been pointed out by environmental justice movements (see Pellow 2000; Melosi 2004 for a historical perspective. See Schlosberg 2007 for a discussion). In addition, if resources are complementary to the direct ecosystem services involved in capability formation, they cannot be a complete substitute for them. Given that critical ecosystem services make a unique contribution to well-being, from a strong sustainability perspective, compensating a community for the loss of a landscape, which serves as an asset for aesthetic inspiration, or the loss of a forest that provides provisioning or regulating services, does not seem to be fair in terms of intragenerational justice. Therefore, being able to acknowledge individual and group vulnerabilities when defining CNC becomes a key issue for the pursuance of strong sustainability. Otherwise, there is always a risk that existing social inequalities will be exacerbated. 2.5.4  Sustainable Use of Ecosystem Services: Feasibility and Conditions? The two previous subsections have demonstrated why we should look at ecosystem services through the lens of the CA if we want to better understand how people derive well-being from natural capital. However, it is important to go further and to try to characterize what determines the

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sustainability of the relationship between natural capital and human well-­ being. Schultz et al. (2013, p. 130) offer the following stark conclusions: “simply accepting that nourishment is necessary to live a human life does not explain how natural goods nourish nor how they are obtained from the natural dimension and how their provision affects the natural dimension”. This implies to tackle a double challenge (1) obtaining information about how functionings are derived from ecosystems and (2) identifying which functionings should be restrained (Schultz et al. 2013). According to Schultz et al. (2013), the ecosystem services and CNC concepts are relevant for tackling the first challenge and social deliberation is suggested as a mean to tackle the second one. The purpose of the two final subsections is to further investigate these issues. According to Ballet et al. (2011), the notion of capability structure15 makes it is possible to better understand how individuals use ecosystem services by focusing on the real alternatives that are available to them. They conclude that people’s behaviour in relation to ecosystem services is often based on the constraints they face, rather than on the outcome of irresponsible attitudes and practices. Indeed, distinguishing between achieved and potential functionings should reveal these constraints through people’s access to resources, entitlements and conversion factors. For example, people may deliberately choose to shop in a discount supermarket, or they may make this choice because limited resources (money, time, education, information, etc.), limited internal conversion factors (lack of mobility, etc.) and limited external conversion factors (the absence of organic shops and markets, social discrimination, etc.) give them no alternative. Therefore, as is shown by this example, and as has been demonstrated in the two previous sections, it is possible to conclude that people’s resources, entitlements and conversion factors determine the use of ecosystem services, and more generally, the use of natural capital. However, it is also clear that the values underlying people’s choices (Rauschmayer et al. 2011), their concept of responsibility towards other human beings or towards non-humans (Pelenc et al. 2013) and their personal histories, as well as the influence of the social context on personal decisions (Robeyns 2005), play a crucial role in deciding what strategies are adopted in relation to ecosystem services. Finally, Fischer and Eastwood (2016), demonstrate that personal and social identities play also an important role regarding the use of ecosystem services. They explain that individuals can have the opportunities to use certain ecosystem services but choose not to use them as they are not in line with their identities.

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From this standpoint it is possible to present the following table which brings together the parameters that determine the use of ecosystem services (Table 2.1). The sustainability of a chosen functioning will hence depend on the parameters contained in the above table and how they are combined. If we Table 2.1  Parameters that determine the use of ecosystem services (non-­ exhaustive list) Parameters

Instances

References

The different types of resources

– All kinds of goods and services which are of interest to people (not only from market -based economies) e.g. commodities, income, tools, manufactured and financial capital, loans, time, etc. – Human capital, personal experience, savoir faire, self-confidence, etc.

Sen (1999), Robeyns (2005), Bonvin and Farvaque (2008), Fischer and Eastwood (2016)

Entitlements

Personal conversion factors Social conversion factors

– Social capital – All legal rights and exchange rights (political entitlements, freedom of association, land entitlements, property rights, social and economic rights, etc.), traditional, unformal and perceived rights, etc. – Health and psychological conditions, personal skills, gender, disabilities, etc.

– Public infrastructure, public policies, institutions, markets, social and religious norms and customs, discriminating practices, gender roles, societal hierarchies, power relations, etc. Environmental – Environmental conditions and certain conversion regulating ecosystem services (local climate, factors geomorphological conditions, etc.) Values which – Ex-ante responsibility (responsibility guide choices towards other people and non-humans) – Social influences on decision making and personal history and psychology – Sustainable development as a value Source: Own

Ballet et al. (2005), Lehtonen (2004), Fischer and Eastwood (2016) Sen (1999), Nussbaum (2003), Bonvin and Farvaque (2008), Fischer and Eastwood (2016) Sen (1999), Robeyns (2005), Dubois and Trani (2009), Fischer and Eastwood (2016) Sen (1999), Robeyns (2005)

Sen (1999), Lessmann (2011), Polishchuk and Rauschmayer (2012) Ballet et al. (2007), Pelenc et al. (2013) Robeyns (2005) Rauschmayer et al. (2011)

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again take the example of nourishment, from a strong sustainability perspective small scale organic farming or community supported agriculture represents an appropriate combination for achieving the functioning of ‘being well nourished’ (for further details see the analysis of community supported agriculture by Pelenc et  al. 2013). However, as stated by Schultz et al. (2013), if achieved functionings can affect the preconditions of capabilities, if capabilities can be offered to future generations (intergenerational justice) and if the use of ecosystem services can be decided by one social group at the expense of other social groups within the same generation (intragenerational justice), then certain functionings will have to be limited. But what would make such a limitation legitimate? Strong sustainability seems to represent a relevant framework for restricting the CA ‘valuable functionings’.16 However, proponents of strong ­sustainability recognize that specifying the critical levels of natural capital to be maintained does not only depend on a scientific understanding of ecological systems, but also implies a broader social debate about ‘what’ has to be sustained and ‘for whom’ it has to be sustained (Chiesura and de Groot 2003). This is very insightful. The next subsection, the last in the chapter, explores the role of public deliberation in the social definition of pathways of human development from a strong sustainability perspective. 2.5.5  Critical Natural Capital, the Capability Approach and Public Deliberation This last part of the chapter intends in a tentative fashion to shed light on the potential of combining the CA, CNC and public deliberation to create sustainable pathways for human development. We argue that the CA, by providing relevant information about the capacity of people to derive their well-being from ecosystem services, can help to define CNC relative to preference-based approaches, such as contingent valuation, market-like instruments (payments for ecosystem services), hedonic pricing, etc. Indeed, capabilities form a wider informational basis than preferences because they give us a broad understanding of people’s access to resources and entitlements, their conversion capacity (i.e. the social and environmental context and personal heterogeneity) and their values. Sen (1999), by basing his logic on the informational basis of the CA, argues that through public deliberation, agreed social concerns can emerge and partial agreements are sufficient to identify

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alternative scenarios which are acceptable to all the relevant stakeholders; thus there is no requirement for complete social unanimity (i.e. a complete ranking of individual preferences).17 The ‘social concern’ at stake here is the definition of a set of critical ecosystem services provided by CNC in a particular socio-ecological system. An ecosystem service can be considered as critical if it is not substitutable in terms of capabilities generation by manufactured goods and services (or even other ecosystem services or human capital) and if its loss would be irreversible entailing very large costs and raising ethical questioning. We then have to be able to define a list of valuable capabilities related to critical ecosystem services and to identify particular environmental injustices at a particular spatial scale. Here, the valuation of critical ecosystem services is understood as functionings obtained from a particular ecosystem service, such as ‘being able to enjoy a walk in the forest’, ‘being able to farm a piece of land for food’, ‘being able to enjoy good air quality’, etc., (see Pelenc and Ballet 2015 for an exemple). Sen (2004) advocates a purely deliberative approach for defining a list of valuable capabilities. Moreover, Sen (2009) also advocates a comparative approach to justice based on ‘public reasoning’.18 In addition, Alkire (2010) explains that human development does not specify who decides what people ‘have reason to value’ for any given context, but it does create a space where this issue can be discussed. This emphasis of human development scholars on ‘public deliberation’ echoes what is more generally termed as ‘deliberative democracy’.19 We argue that the CA and CNC can contribute the relevant ‘informational’ and ‘normative’ bases for building socially embedded sustainable pathways of human development. Indeed, ecosystem services and capabilities constitute the informational basis. Regarding the normative basis, the CA highlights ‘freedom of choice’ and a comparative approach to justice and strong sustainability highlights the severely limited substitutability of natural capital and so the need to conserve CNC. In turn, deliberative democracy provides a conceptual framework from which possible procedures could be adapted for the identification of critical ecosystem services and related valuable capabilities. Therefore, criticality is no longer restricted to the provision of scientific knowledge about ecological systems or to the issue of scarce resource distribution, but includes freedom of choice and concerns about justice in relation to individual and group vulnerabilities. Finally, criticality of natural capital may be envisaged as an emergent property of ecological and human value systems.

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2.6   Conclusion In this chapter we have demonstrated the significance of using the concept of CNC to integrate an ecological dimension into the CA and that helped us to bring human development into line with the requirements of strong sustainability. First, via the notion of ‘direct’ ecosystem services, the concept of CNC helps to acknowledge the instrumental value of the natural environment in the generation of capabilities. Second, via the notion of ‘supporting’ services, it illustrates the primary dependence of humanity on natural capital. Third, the concept of CNC highlights the fact that natural capital is not fully substitutable by other forms of capital and that its degradation is often irreversible, hence limiting monetary compensation within and between generations. This helps bind the expansion of ­freedom to ecological constraints and to add a dynamic aspect to the CA. Thus, the conservation of CNC in the long run appears as a substantive goal for human development. Finally, the strong sustainability approach recognizes that thresholds of criticality and decisions as to what constitutes the critical elements of natural capital are not purely ecological issues; they share a space with human development considerations. At the same time we have demonstrated how looking at CNC and ecosystem services through the CA can ensure that strong sustainability matches with human development requirements. First, by introducing the concept of ecosystem services into an established well-being assessment framework, some of its limitations can be overcome. Indeed, it helps to situate ecosystem services within a distribution of entitlements and resources, and to link it, via conversion factors, to personal characteristics and to the socio-cultural and economic context in which people evolve so that we can gain a better understanding of how people can derive well-­being from natural capital. By looking at ecosystem services through the lens of the CA we can address issues of intragenerational justice in terms of who benefits (and who does not) from natural capital, and identify the parameters that determine the use of ecosystem services. This information should lead to a better definition of critical ecosystem services and a critical threshold for natural capital. Finally, we have highlighted an avenue of research which seems very promising by showing that the CA and CNC can provide both a relevant ‘informational’ basis and ‘normative’ basis for a deliberative approach to human development. Because of this dialogue between strong sustainability and human development we have paved the way for tackling issues of intra and intergenerational justice. And this reconciles sustainability and equity within the same integrated framework of strong sustainable human development.

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Notes 1. For instance, the paper that Anand and Sen published in 2000 refers to Robert Solow’s seminal contribution on weak sustainability. However, in other parts of this paper and other writings (Sen 2009, pp. 248–252), Sen seems to defend strong sustainability. 2. –  Manufactured capital refers to the physical means of production (tools, factories, machineries, etc.) and infrastructure. –– Human capital covers knowledge and skills, experience and know-how. –– Social capital refers to the set of formal and informal social relationships entered into by an individual, group or organisation. –– Natural capital is described in this section See Ekins et al. 2003 for details about the term ‘capital’, and see Dietz and Neumayer 2007, for details about the ‘capital approach’. 3. Authors writing about CNC refer mainly to the ecological functions provided by natural capital and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment refers to ecosystem services. Ekins et al. (2003) distinguish between the function ‘of’ natural capital and the function ‘for’ human beings. The concept of the ‘supporting service’ used in the MEA clearly reflects the function ‘of’ natural capital, and the concept of ‘direct services’ popularised by MEA directly echoes the function ‘for’ humans. For the sake of simplicity, we will not go any further into the distinction between functions and services here, and will only refer to ecosystem services. 4. Of course we acknowledge that human development should also respect social, cultural and political constraints. There is no space here to develop this point but Crabtree (2013) advances the idea that increases in freedom are legitimate if they cannot be reasonably rejected and not just regarding impacts on the environment. 5. The nine boundaries are: climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone, the biogeochemical nitrogen cycle, the phosphorus cycle, land system change, the rate at which biological diversity is lost, chemical pollution and atmospheric aerosol loading. 6. These services include fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water purification, and the regulation of regional and local climate, natural hazards and pests. 7. It should be pointed out that while the effects of environmental degradation have an impact at the individual level, they are created at the aggregate level (Schultz et al. 2013). 8. We set up a specific category for ecosystem services in the along the lines of strong sustainability to differentiate them from substitutable goods and services that are traditionally designated by the word ‘resources’. However, it is important to note that, in our conception of the CA, ‘entitlement’ applies to ‘ecosystem services’.

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9. Schultz et al. (2013) suggest that three kinds of information are required to determine the sustainability of a functioning. These three types of information are: identification of the potential impact of a functioning on natural capital, the qualification of the impacts as positive or negative and the determination of legitimate constraints on functioning. 10. It is necessary to point out that here we are referring to ‘conservation’ which allows for the sustainable use of natural capital, and not to ‘protection’ which generally excludes the use of natural capital. 11. We are not saying that aggregate ecological indicators are not useful, but that they are not sufficient in themselves. They have to be complemented by contextual approaches. 12. According to Fischer and Eastwood (2016), knowledge of plant species, of history and customs allow individuals to make use of the forest in ways that might have been invisible and inaccessible to someone without this knowledge. They also highlight the role of past experiences and upbringing regarding the possibility to use the forest to derive ecosystem services. 13. Fischer and Eastwood (2016) report, in their qualitative study on the co-production of ecosystem services, that many interviewees recognized that the opportunities to interact with the forest depended on one’s age and mobility. 14. Even if it has been demonstrated by many scholars that nature encourages the use of outdoor spaces, and increases social integration and positive social interaction among neighbours. These are important social and psychological benefits, which may be more important to the ‘urban poor’, who have limited environmental alternatives available to them (Chiesura and de Groot 2003). 15. “The objective of analyzing capability structures is therefore to achieve a better description of the possible choices an individual has, by considering the combination of constraints and opportunities that confront him/her” (Ballet et al. 2011 p.1832). 16. We acknowledge that other authors have suggested different concepts to limit some capabilities. Breena Holland (2008, 2014) advances the idea of establishing « capability ceilings » to limit the impact of certain functionings on the well-being of others and Peeters et al. (2015b) advance the similar idea of « functionings constraints ». However, these two approaches are not directly connected with the concept of ecosystem services and are rather conceptualized at a macro level. In addition, the question of who should set up the thresholds still remains. Crabtree (2013) suggests a different perspective. Building on Scalon, he develops the idea of legitimate freedoms which are the freedoms or the increase in freedoms that cannot be reasonably rejected. This perspective is more in line with social deliberation. 17. This issue is related to social choice theory. We will not develop this aspect further; for additional information see Sen 1999, p. 253 and chapter 11.

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18. For additional information see Sen (2009, pp. 324–327). 19. Deliberative democracy emphasizes the deliberative or discursive aspects of democratic decision-making rather than institutionalized norms (e.g. electoral systems, branches of government, parliamentary arrangements, bureaucratic functions) that are frequently defined as being the essence of democracy (Sneddon et al. 2006). It draws largely on Habermas’ Discourse Ethics and Communicative Action (Habermas 1984) and is embodied in the assumption that individuals can change their mind during deliberative processes (Zografos and Howarth 2010).

References Agyeman, J., Bullard, R.  D., & Evans, B. (Eds.). (2003). Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World. Cambridge: MIT Press. Alkire, S. (2010). Human Development: Definitions, Critiques and Related Concepts, Research Paper 2010/01, Human Development Report. New York: United Nations Development Program. Anand, S., & Sen, A. K. (2000). Human Development and Economic Sustainability. World Development, 28(12), 2029–2049. Armstrong, A. (2012). Ethics and Justice for the Environment. London: Routledge. Ballet, J., Dubois, J.-L., & Mahieu, F.-R. (2005). L’autre développement, le développement socialement soutenable. Paris: L’Harmattan. Ballet, J., Dubois, J.-L., & Mahieu, F.-R. (2007). Responsibility for Each Other’s Freedom: Agency as the Source of Collective Capability. Journal of Human Development, 8(2), 185–201. Ballet, J., Bazin, D., Dubois, J.-L., & Mahieu, F.-R. (2011). A Note on Sustainability Economics and the Capability Approach. Ecological Economics, 70(11), 1831–1834. Bonvin, F., & Farvaque, N. (2008). Amartya Sen: Une politique de la liberté. Paris: Michalon. Brand, F. (2009). Critical Natural Capital Revisited: Ecological Resilience and Sustainable Development. Ecological Economics, 68(3), 605–612. Carpenter, S., Mooney, H. A., Agard, J., Capistrano, D., et al. (2008). Science for Managing Ecosystem Services: Beyond the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. PNAS, 106(5), 1305–1312. Chiesura, A., & De Groot, R. (2003). Critical Natural Capital: A Socio-Cultural Perspective. Ecological Economics, 44(2–3), 219–231. Cleaver, K. M., & Schreiber, G. A. (1998). Inversing the Spiral. The Population, Agriculture Environment Nexus in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Cornut, P., Bauler, T., & Zaccai, E. (Eds.). (2007). Environnement et inégalités sociales. Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles.

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Crabtree, A. (2013). Sustainable Development: Does the Capability Approach Have Anything to Offer? Outlining a Legitimate Freedom Approach. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 14(1), 40–57. Daily, S., Polasky, J., Goldstein, P.  M., Kareiva, H., et  al. (2009). Ecosystem Services in Decision Making: Time to Deliver. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 7(1), 21–28. De Groot, R., Van der Perk, J., Chiesura, A., & van Vliet, A. (2003). Importance and Threat as Determining Factors for Criticality of Natural Capital. Ecological Economics, 44(2–3), 187–204. De Groot, R. S., Brander, S., Van de Ploeg, F., Bernard, F., et al. (2012). Global Estimates of the Value of Ecosystems and Their Services in Monetary Terms. Ecosystem Services, 1, 50–61. Dietz, S., & Neumayer, E. (2007). Weak and Strong Sustainability in the SEEA: Concepts and Measurement. Ecological Economics, 61(4), 617–626. Dubois, J. L., & Trani, J. (2009). Enlarging the Capability Paradigm to Address the Complexity of Disability. ALTER-European Journal of Disability Research, 3(3), 2–28. Duraiappah, A.  K. (1998). Poverty and Environmental Degradation: A Review and Analysis of the Nexus. World Development, 26(12), 2169–2179. Duraiappah, A.  K. (2004). Exploring the Links: Human Well-Being, Poverty and Ecosystem Services. The United Nations Environment Programme and the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Retrieved August 24, 2011, from http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2004/economics_exploring_the_links.pdf. Ekins, P., Simon, S., Deutsch, L., Folke, C., et al. (2003). A Framework for the Practical Application of the Concepts of Critical Natural Capital and Strong Sustainability. Ecological Economics, 44(2–3), 165–185. Farley, J. (2012). Ecosystem Services: The Economics Debate. Ecosystem Services, 1, 40–49. Fischer, A., & Eastwood, A. (2016). Coproduction of Ecosystem Services as Human–Nature Interactions—An Analytical Framework. Land Use Policy, 52, 41–50. Fisher, R., Turner, K., & Morling, P. (2009). Defining and Classifying Ecosystem Services for Decision Making. Ecological Economics, 68(3), 643–653. Flipo, F. (2005). Pour une écologisation du concept de capabilité d’Amartya Sen. Nature Sciences Sociétés, 13, 68–75. Habermas, J. (1984). The Theory of Communicative Action. Boston: Beacon Press. Haines-Young, R., & Potschin, M. (2010). The Links Between Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Human Well-Being. In D. Raffaelli & C. Frid (Eds.), Ecosystem Ecology: A New Synthesis. Cambridge: BES Ecological Reviews Series. Holland, B. (2008). Ecology and the Limits of Justice: Establishing Capability Ceilings in Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach. Journal of Human Development, 9(3), 401–425.

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Holland, B. (2014). Allocating the Earth: A Distributional Framework for Protecting Capabilities in Environmental Law and Policy. Oxford: OUP. Kalaora, B. (1993). Le musée vert: radiographie du loisir en forêt. Paris: l’Harmattan. Laigle, L., & Tual, M. (2007). Conceptions des inégalités écologiques dans cinq pays européens: quelle place dans les politiques de développement urbain durable? Développement durable et territoire, 9. Retrieved July 20, 2008, from http://developpementdurable.revues.org/document4262.html. Lehtonen, M. (2004). The Environmental–Social Interface of Sustainable Development: Capabilities, Social Capital, Institutions. Ecological Economics, 49(2), 199–214. Lessmann, O. (2011). Sustainability as a Challenge to Capability Approach. In F. Rauschmayer, I. Omann, & J. Frühmann (Eds.), Sustainable Development: Capabilities, Needs and Well-Being. London: Routledge Studies in Ecological Economics. Lessmann, O., & Rauschmayer, F. (2013). Re-Conceptualizing Sustainable Development on the Basis of the Capability Approach: A Model and Its Difficulties. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 14(1), 95–114. Melosi, A. (2004). Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. (2005). Ecosystem and Human Well-Being: A Synthesis. Washington, DC: Island Press. Neumayer, E. (2003). Weak Versus Strong Sustainability: Exploring the Limits of Two Opposing Paradigms. Northampton: Edward Elgar. Neumayer, E. (2012). Human Development and Sustainability. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 13(4), 561–579. Noël, J.-F., & O’Connor, M. (1998). Strong Sustainability and Critical Natural Capital. In Faucheux & O’Connor (Eds.), Valuation for Sustainable Development: Methods and Policy Indicators. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Nussbaum, M. (2003). Capabilities as Fundamental Entitlements: Sen and Social Justice. Feminist Economics, 9(2–3), 33–59. Peeters, W., Dirix, J., & Sterckx, S. (2013). Putting Sustainability into Sustainable Human Development. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 14(1), 58–76. Peeters, W., Dirix, J., & Sterckx, S. (2015a). Towards an Integration of the Ecological Space Paradigm and the Capabilities Approach. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 28(3), 479–496. Peeters, W., Dirix, J., & Sterckx, S. (2015b). The Capabilities Approach and Environmental Sustainability: The Case for Functioning Constraints. Environmental Values, 24(3), 367–389. Pelenc, J., & Ballet, J. (2015). Strong Sustainability, Critical Natural Capital and the Capability Approach. Ecological Economics, 112, 36–44.

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Pelenc, J., & Dubois, J.  L. (2011). Innovating in the Link Between Strong Sustainability and the Capability Approach: The Role of Critical Natural Capital in Human Development. International conference of Human Development and Capability Approach. The Hague. Pelenc, J., Lompo, K. M., Ballet, J., & Dubois, J.-L. (2013). Sustainable Human Development and the Capability Approach: Integrating Environment, Responsibility and Collective Agency. Journal of Human Development, 14(1), 77–94. Pellow, D. N. (2000). Environmental Inequality Formation: Toward a Theory of Environmental Injustice. American Behavioral Scientist, 43(3), 581–601. Polishchuk, Y., & Rauschmayer, F. (2012). Beyond “Benefits”? Looking at Ecosystems Services Through the Capability Approach. Ecological Economics, 81, 103–111. Rauschmayer, F., & Leβmann, O. (2011). Assets and Drawbacks of the CA as Foundation for the Sustainability Economics. Ecological Economics, 70(11), 1835–1836. Rauschmayer, F., Omann, I., & Frühmann, J. (Eds.). (2011). Sustainable Development: Capabilities, Needs and Well-Being. London: Routledge Studies in Ecological Economics. Reboud, V. (Ed.). (2008). Sen: un économiste du développement? Paris: AFD. Robeyns, I. (2005). The Capability Approach: A Theoretical Survey. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 6(1), 93–117. Rockström, J., Steffen, W.  L., Noone, K., Persson, Å., et  al. (2009). Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity. Ecology and Society, 14(2), art.32. Retrieved March 12, 2012, from http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/. Schlosberg, D. (2007). Defining Environmental Justice. Theories, Movements, and Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schultz, E., Christen, M., Voget-Kleschin, L., & Burger, P. (2013). A Sustainability-­ Fitting Interpretation of the Capability Approach: Integrating the Natural Dimension by Employing Feedback-Loops. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 14(1), 115–133. Sen, A.  K. (1992). Inequality Reexamined (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sen, A. K. (1999). Development as Freedom (1st ed.). New York: Knopf. Sen, A.  K. (2004). Capabilities, Lists, and Public Reason: Continuing the Conversation. Feminist Economics, 10(3), 77–80. Sen, A. K. (2009). The Idea of Justice. Cambridge: Belknap Press. Sneddon, C., Howarth, R., & Norgaard, R. (2006). Sustainable Development in a Post-Brundtland World. Ecological Economics, 57(2), 253–265.

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CHAPTER 3

Sustainability Indicators, Ethics and Legitimate Freedoms Andrew Crabtree

3.1   Introduction Amartya Sen’s work within the capability approach has, in part, been concerned with comparative quality of life assessment. In this area, the central question concerns we evaluate people’s well-being or human development. For Sen, human development is a process of expanding the real freedoms—capabilities—that people have to lead the lives they value (Sen 1999). This is envisioned, schematically, in Fig. 3.1 below. The motivation for taking capabilities as the relevant evaluative space (the red box) comes from Sen’s criticisms of the income approach to development and the definition of poverty as, now, $1.90 a day, which has been propounded by the IMF and the World Bank (Sen 1999), and approaches which only examine people’s actual doings and beings (more technically termed functionings). An example of the latter would be the World Health Organisation’s definition of being nourished as having 2100 calories a day.

A. Crabtree (*) Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Crabtree (ed.), Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38905-5_3

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Resources

Conversion factors

Capabilities/ freedoms

Functionings (doings and beings)

Consequences and responsibilities

Fig. 3.1  The evaluative space of the capability approach. (Source: Own)

The argument is not that income, food, water and shelter are unimportant to well-being but that they do not capture essential aspects of well-being. The criticism of resource-based views has been that different people need different resources to have the same freedom to lead the lives they value. For example, the physicist Stephen Hawkin needed a variety of resources, including computer aids to have the capability to speak, which he did not need earlier in his life. Individual characteristics of the person are one type of conversion factor. This is not a knockout argument. One possible response from those who support a resource-based approach is that examples such as that of Stephen Hawkin only complicate the issue for we just need a more complicated understanding of resources and we could factor in other elements to the poverty line or an evaluation of well-being. The case against resource-based approaches is perhaps even more obvious when we consider institutional or behavioral conversion factors. Western human rights activists in the Philippines are more able to undertake their activities than are Philippine activists working for the same cause (Amnesty International 2017). According to the Economist’s Democracy Index, Botswanans have more political freedom than do people living in Portugal, Israel, Estonia and the Czech Republic (amongst others) despite income differences. Under apartheid in South Africa no amount of increases in resources could give ‘coloureds’ the freedom to vote. Similar arguments can be made with other forms of discrimination such as those against women, Dalits or people with disabilities. If we solely consider people’s functionings (actual doings and beings) as being essential to well-being, we once more exclude important information. Again, both Gandhi (Sen’s example) or Bobby Sands (a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who was elected to the British parliament) on hunger strike and someone in a famine may well have the same nutritional intake, the same functioning, but they had substantially different choices. Hence, Sen argues, the correct evaluative space is one of capabilities or freedoms rather than resources or functionings.

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If, however, we change our focus from human development to sustainable development, and wish to answer the question of whether development is sustainable or not, it is necessary to have indicators which draw a line between sustainability and unsustainability. Consequently, the evaluative space needs to be broadened from capabilities to include the environment and make the approach (it is usually not, Robeyns 2005), and in relation to this we need to examine the consequences of our doings and beings and our correlative responsibilities. This chapter concentrates on resources and environmental indicators rather than our responsibilities. It argues that while science pays an extremely important role in establishing such indicators we also need to justify them ethically. Section 3.2 outlines the different types of sustainability indicators concerning weak and strong sustainability. Section 3.3 examines the World Bank’s Adjusted Net Savings as an indicator of weak sustainability. Thereafter, Sect. 3.4 discusses indicators of strong sustainability namely, Ecological Footprint analysis, the Planetary Boundary approach and Sustainable Development Goals. Due to the large number of indicators involved only a few indicators are discussed in greater detail. However, these illuminate the problems involved. Section 3.5 discusses legitimacy and examines the ethical basis of the boundaries drawing on Scanlonian contractualism and argues for a conceptualisation of sustainable development as one of increasing legitimate freedoms. It is here too that I shall discuss policy relevance. The discussions reflect the desiderata for sustainability indicators demanded by Parris and Kates (2003), namely credibility (scientific and technical adequacy), legitimacy (justifiability to stakeholders), and salience (relevance to decision makers).

3.2   Types of Environmental Indicators We may usefully divided sustainability indicators into three kinds, Fig. 3.2, namely composite in which development and sustainability indicators are made into one such as the World Bank’s Adjusted Net Savings (also known as Genuine Savings) approach. Two separate composite indicators, one for development and the other for the environment. This has proved popular within the capabilities approach where Ecological Footprint and been combined with the Human Development Index (Neumayer 2012) or the Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index (Crabtree 2012). A third

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Sustainable Development Indicators

Composite (development + environment)

Adjusted Net Savings

Seperate composite indicators

Ecological Footprint + HDI /IHDI

Seperate indicators

Environmental + List of Capabilities

Fig. 3.2  Approaches to sustainable development indicators (blue indicates weak sustainability, green strong sustainability). (Source: Author’s own)

approach, that favoured here, is to use separate individual indicators for. This should be done on a wide variety of scales depending on the purpose. Economists differentiate between natural capital (for example, ecosystems), manufactured capital (such as buildings and roads), and human capital. As Pelenc and Dubois (Chap. 3, this volume) state a division is made between weak sustainability which is the view that all forms of capital (natural, manufactured and human) are substitutable, and is the underlying assumption of using one composite indicator. Anand and Sen (2000) may also be characterised as a form of weak sustainability as they maintain that natural and manufactured—but not human—capital are substitutable. Strong sustainability rejects this line of thought as “zero natural capital implies zero human welfare because it is not feasible to substitute, in total, purely ‘non-natural’ capital for natural capital. Manufactured and human capital require natural capital for their construction” (Costanza et al. 1997, p. 254). Strong sustainability is central to ecological economists and rings true to the capability approach because of Sen’s conversion problem and because of the non-substitutability of other forms of capital. It is closely linked to the idea of ecosystem services being the basis for well-being propounded by the Millennium Assessment Report (an approach which has been taken up by Lessmann and in modified form by with respect to the capability approach). Very strong sustainability is more restrictive as it places equal values on humans and animals. It maintains that all natural capital should be maintained for future generations, while the former maintains that only critical capital “ought to be maintained in any circumstances in favour of present and future generations, i.e. is part of the minimal necessary conditions of

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sustainability” (Brand 2010, para. 1). The view taken here is that it is impossible to preserve all natural capital, as some consumption of non-­ renewable resources is necessary to keep present and future generations alive. Critical Natural Capital (CNC) would therefore seem to be an appropriate cut-off point for separating sustainability and non-­sustainability (Brand 2009). The concept of CNC is employed to draw a distinction between the strong and very strong sustainability approaches. A standard way of defining CNC is as the “part of the natural environment that performs important and irreplaceable functions” (Ekins 2003). This raises two questions. Firstly, who defines what is important and irreplaceable and secondly who knows what is important and irreplaceable? To take the second first, some of the early articles about natural capital were concerned about the depletion of oil reserves (e.g. Goodland 1995; Daly and Goodland 1996), we are now, due to climate change, worried about using the oil reserves we can already exploit (IPCC 2007). In other words, what appears critical at one time may be rejected as such later on. There have been several attempts to answer the first question, which Brand (2009) has usefully divided into six to some extent compatible approaches, namely: social-cultural (highly significant for a particular social group), ecological (vital for, say, biodiversity), sustainability (fundamental for human well-being), ethical, economic (capital loss would have high economic costs) or human survival. In Sect. 3.5 I will argue for an ethical view. The concept of natural capital is closely linked to that of ecosystem services. Natural capital can be thought of as a stock such as trees, fish, and ecosystems. An ecosystem is defined as “a dynamic complex plant, animal and microorganism communities and the non-living environment interacting as a functional unit” (Convention on Biodiversity). Ecosystem services are defined as “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems” or flows that produce human welfare (Costanza et al. 1997), and as such ecosystem services are the links between ecosystems on the one hand and human well-being on the other. If ecosystem services are defined in terms of the benefits people actually experience, then such services also differ from natural capital which exists whether it benefits people or not. The fact that ecosystem services are seen in terms of benefits raises the question of how we are to understand the term ‘benefits’. This has led to the criticism that it induces people to have an overly positive view of ecosystems (Schröter et  al. 2014). Not surprisingly, ecosystems can be both beneficial and harmful (ecosystem disservices), bees are essential for

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pollination but can also lead to fatalities. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity approach (Ring et al. 2010) approaches this problem by placing prices nature thus making its value more evident. For instance, it has been calculated that wild bees contribute $3251  ha−1 for certain crops. However, this can be problematic as endangered species may be of little economic value, and consequently economic value is an inadequate ground for biodiversity conservation (Kleijn et al. 2015). In the following, I will concentrate on weak (Adjusted Net savings) and strong sustainability (The Ecological Footprint, Planetary Boundaries and the SDGs). For my views on animal and ecosystem rights see Crabtree (2013).

3.3   Indicators of Weak Sustainability 3.3.1  Adjusted Net Savings The World Bank’s measure of Adjusted Net Savings (ANS), or Genuine Savings, is a composite indicator of weak sustainability as it treats all forms of capital as fungible. In terms of theory, it derives from economics rather than natural science. ANS is calculated by subtracting the depreciation of fixed capital from gross national savings, which leads us to net savings. Education expenditure is taken as an indicator of human capital (though spending and achievements are clearly two different matters). Having computed this figure, the depletion of natural resources (i.e. energy, mineral, and net forest) and pollution damages (i.e. carbon dioxide and particulate emissions) are deducted to arrive at genuine savings. Monetary calculations are thus used for all measures. Consequently, this approach maintains that an increase in education expenditure can make up for natural resource depletion or pollution damages. That is, in principle, rainforest depletion can be made up for by increasing education expenditure. It is precisely this kind of substitutability that strong sustainability rejects. A number of criticisms have been levied against the approach both in terms of economics and in relation to the environment. Stiglitz et  al. (2009) have argued that current prices are an inadequate indicator of the value of non-renewable resources as prices as there can be sizable changes with the consequence that ‘sustainability’ swings, sometimes quite rapidly, both positively and negatively. Furthermore, when natural resources are depleted, the reduction in supply forces their price upwards suggesting that they are more sustainable than is the case (Fitoussi and Malik 2013). Furthermore, prices used for carbon emissions decrease the significance of

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CO2 for sustainability, thus reducing ANS’ credibility as a policy tool. Moreover, given the contents of the measure, natural resource exporting countries tend to be unsustainable whereas those countries that import the resources are not. From a human development perspective, ANS only relates, and indirectly, to two capabilities, namely education and health. It might be argued that this is no worse than the Human Development Index (HDI). However, the HDI has the advantage that it refers to actual achievements (e.g. mean years of schooling for adults and expected years of schooling for children) rather than expenditures. Health for the HDI relates to life expectancy, whereas the ANS only concerns health damages due to pollution. Thus, the ANS is severely restricted as a measure of human development. Similarly, in terms of the environment, a satisfactory indicator of overall sustainability should embrace the minimum major environmental problems. However, even in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions the ANS is an inadequate measure as the number of countries that would be counted as unsustainable would increase by two thirds if pollution damages included other GHGs such as methane and nitrous oxide and not just CO2. Moreover, water depletion, over fishing, soil degradation, and biodiversity loss are not taken into account. These substantial limitations again reduce both the measure’s value as an indicator of sustainability and for policy.

3.4   Indicators of Strong Sustainability 3.4.1  The Ecological Footprint If one wants to avoid the fungibility problem and employ a single composite environmental indicator, then the Ecological Footprint (EF) is the main contender. As an indicator, the EF has much in common with the HDI. Both measures derive from respectable theoretical backgrounds— natural capital and the capability approach, respectively. Although the EF is now produced by a non-governmental organisation (NGO), namely the Ecological Footprint Network, it has its origins in the academic literature, where it remains widely used and cited. Furthermore, it is employed as a measure of biodiversity among other Convention on Biological Diversity indicators. The EF is open to independent review and is used to guide policy in some countries (e.g. Ecuador). Its usage thus goes far beyond its acclaimed heuristic value (Stiglitz et al. 2009).

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Further similarities between the HDI and EF are that both measures can be used at the country level, that there is now sufficient data to show changes over time (in the case of the EF going back to 1960), and that both indicators are handy tools for giving a quick indication of current developments. Given these properties as well as the lack of alternatives, it is not surprising that several authors have conjoined the two indicators to demarcate sustainable development. The Ecological Footprint Network has thus put forward the idea that sustainable development is considered to be highly human developed whilst remaining under global overshoot (Moran et al. 2008; Neumayer 2012). The Ecological Footprint Network provides a moving time sequence graph (1980–2007) that shows how human development and the EF are related over that period. The trend has been that an increase in HDI has seen an increase in a country’s EF, i.e. greater unsustainability. This is not always the case: Argentina, Australia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Uruguay have all experienced a reduction in their EFs since the early 1980s (all of these countries are ‘highly developed’). As defined by the Ecological Footprint Network, only Peru presently meets the sustainable development criteria. Cuba met them in 2003, but by 2007 it was in overshoot. The idea was developed by Crabtree (2012) to take inequalities in human development into consideration by using the Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index, Fig. 3.3, this quite clearly shows that sustainable human development is not being achieved. There are serious drawbacks with EF analysis though there are also some common misunderstandings about it. The Stiglitz Commission has criticized the EF for not taking technology into account, for being anti-­ trade, and for being unnecessary, as it is only carbon emissions that cause unsustainability as measured by the EF and therefore the EF could be replaced by the Carbon Footprint. Taking these criticisms in turn, firstly technological progress is taken into account in that the EF measures year-­ on-­year changes. Indeed, an opposite and stronger argument has been made, namely that this is problematic because the use of fertilizers may increase yields but at the same time produce toxic wastes that are not accounted for. This creates the impression that a given form of land use is more sustainable than it is, i.e. sustainability is overstated. Future projections concerning the EF and the effects of renewable technology on carbon emissions have been, and changes in diet from large meat eating habits to low meat diets have also been incorporated. This shows the flexibility of the EF.

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Ecological Footprint 2007 (Global Hectors per person)

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Sustainable Human Development

1 0

0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1.0

Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index 2010

Fig. 3.3  Sustainable development inequality adjusted human development and the ecological footprint. (Source: Own figure based on Ecological Footprint Atlas 2010 and Human Development Report 2007)

The anti-trade claim is also spurious. The Stiglitz Commission argues: The fact that densely populated … countries like the Netherlands have ecological deficits, whilst sparsely populated … countries like Finland enjoy surpluses can be seen as part of a normal situation where trade is mutually beneficial, rather than an indicator of non-sustainability. However, the point that the EF makes is that trade has an environmental cost and that this should be measured. Trade is normal and can be beneficial, but the EF has no ideological axe to grind. To ignore the environmental consequences of trade could be thought of as an ideological bias towards trade. Stiglitz et al. (2009, p. 61)

The argument for discarding the EF and just relying on the Carbon Footprint is also misguided (similar criticisms are also made by the United Nations Development Programme and Neumayer 2012). As the Ecological Footprint Network (2009) has pointed out, some countries become deficit countries irrespective of their Carbon Footprint. Ecuador is a case in point, as population growth and consumption have pushed it to near deficit levels. Furthermore, the Carbon Footprint

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does not take overfishing into consideration. However, the criticism of the Stiglitz Report can be pushed further. Just because the carbon component is the most significant contributor to unsustainability at the moment, one would have to be a naïve inductivist to assume that this will always be the case. Deforestation, for example, could also be highly problematic, as could the amount of urban land that is taking over crop or grazing land (especially when that land has been particularly productive). If anything, the EF should be criticized for not including enough, a point on which the Ecological Footprint Network agrees. The informational base should be widened rather than decreased. As the 2011 Human Development Report has rightly stated, biodiversity and amenities such as clean water are not included in the EF. Biodiversity is of fundamental importance to human wellbeing and it is clear that any adequate measure of sustainable development needs to take it into account (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2010). The World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report (World Wildlife Fund 2012) suggests that we could go some way to improving the EF as a measure of biological diversity by introducing a “wedge” of 12% of grazing land and 12% of forest land that would be set aside for biodiversity. This relatively simple adjustment would allow us to continue using one overall indicator (the implication would be that current overshoot is greater than the EF suggests). One might argue that it would be unhelpful to apply an arbitrary equal wedge to all countries, as biodiversity is greater in some countries than others. It could thus be argued, for example, that biodiversity hotspots should be preserved irrespective of the amount of a country’s land that they occupy. Such adjustments are quite feasible within the EF approach. Secondly, while the EF is mainly a measure of consumption at a particular moment in time which has a given technology, the measure only includes CO2 emissions running into similar problems as the ANS.  These important limitations show that if anything the EF is an underestimate of unsustainability and that there is a need for more research concerning how it can be combined with other indicators (see, for example, Galli et al. 2012) if we are to gain a clearer picture. However, one must question the credibility of having one composite indicator of environmental sustainability, as it implies that various kinds of natural capital are substitutable. This is not the case; what sense does it make to say that an increase in fish stocks can make up for CO2 emissions? Again there is a substitutability problem though here it is limited to environmental factors. The implications for the environment and for humans

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are significantly different. This problem suggests that a dashboard of environmental sustainability indicators that is combined with capability indicators would be more appropriate. 3.4.2  Planetary Boundaries One of the most widely known approaches is that of planetary boundaries (PB), which has recently been revised. The aim of the approach is to identify a “safe operating space for humanity with respect to the Earth system” (Rockström et al. 2009, p. 472), exceeding these boundaries “constitutes unacceptable human-induced global environmental change” (Rockström et al. 2009, p. 470). Thus, as the authors state, the boundaries are both scientific and normative. The title and, as the title of the article revising the approach is Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development on a Changing Planet (Steffen et  al. 2015), it makes the social and policy hopes clear. From a capabilities perspective one might establish a set of capabilities which are to be achieved within the planetary boundaries. An obvious candidate here would be Nussbaum’s list of ten central capabilities though others are also possible (Nussbaum 2006; see also Alkire 2005). Several capabilities are environmentally neutral—being able to love, grieve or stopping child sexual abuse could be achieved without significant effects on planetary boundaries. Others, for instance Nussbuam’s ‘being able to move freely from place to place’ as part of the central capability of bodily integrity, could have substantial impacts transport accounted for 27% of GHG emissions in the USA in 2015 (epa.gov). Enjoying recreational activities might include large numbers of football fans flying to watch games. The carbon footprints of the computer games and film industries are substantial (Mayers et al. 2015). There are two issues here. The first is the adequacy of Nussbaum’s list (see Chap. 1, this volume). The second concerns the adequacy of the planetary boundaries approach. The PBs are also somewhat tentative and there have been important changes between the PB I and PB II (Fig. 3.4). Indeed, the editorial of Nature which published the first version claimed “The exercise requires many qualifications. For the most part, the exact values chosen as boundaries by Rockström and his colleagues are arbitrary. So too, in some cases, are the indicators of change” (Nature, September 2009, pp. 447–448). Nature simultaneously published comments on the paper by seven leading experts in relevant spheres. The response from the original commentators

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Fig. 3.4  Planetary Boundaries II. (Source J. Lokrantz/Azote based on Steffen et al. 2015)

in Nature was as follows: (1) there was a universal rejection of the particular parameters chosen; (2) depending on the earth system process, there was a questioning of the value of developing planetary boundaries as opposed to regional or local boundaries; and (3) some authors questioned the value of establishing any boundaries at all. More encouragingly, the importance of all of the earth system processes under discussion was not questioned. Steffen et al. (2015) aim to answer criticisms and update the boundaries to reflect the latest knowledge. It identifies two core boundaries, climate change and biosphere integrity, which are overarching systems and are the

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only two boundaries which surpassing them alone would drive the Earth system out of the Holocene sate. In other words, not all boundaries have the same significance. The fact that they are planetary boundaries is not meant to mean that the authors find other scales unimportant, but that the planetary level is most important for the purposes of defining a safe operating space. Figure 3.4 depicts the planetary boundaries, the green area indicates the safe operating space for mankind whilst the yellow zone is that of uncertainty within this zone there may be a threshold or tipping point at which comparatively sudden and irreversible change occurs. Red indicates even higher risk. Table 3.1 outlines the major differences between BP I and PB II showing the changes in earth system process names and control variables. Scientific uncertainty is in itself a problem for if boundaries continually change as a result of knew knowledge, we can only have limited faith in a specific boundary making them of questionable policy value. Policy makers who are given the option of defining dangerous climate change at 1.5°C or 2°C are quite likely to take the upper limit if it demands fewer sacrifices. Here I shall discuss biosphere integrity and land-­ system change in greater detail to illustrate the problems involved. The biodiversity boundary in PB I only related to the species extinction rate, though the authors were clear that it was a weak indicator. PB II sees a name change to biosphere integrity, though no reason is given. PB II has two indicators the species extinction rate and the Biodiversity Intactness Index neither of which are claimed to be ideal. BP II argues that optimally the boundary would provide a strong indicator of genetic diversity which “provides the long-term capacity of the biosphere to persist under and adapt to abrupt and gradual changes” (Steffen et al., p. 3). Thus, a measure of Phylogenetic Species Diversity would be the best variable as it might be more easily affected by human activity than is the case at species level. However, given the lack of data the ‘imperfectly known’ extinction rate is maintained. Table 3.1  Summary of indicators Indicator

Scientific credibility

Policy

Legitimacy

Adjusted Net Savings Ecological Footprint Planetary Boundaries Sustainable Development Goals

Weak Weak Mixed Mixed

Mixed Mixed Mixed Strong

Weak Mixed Weak Mixed

Source: Own

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One criticism that was lodged against PB I was precisely that the approach sets out to establish planetary boundaries but some boundaries, such as those concerning biodiversity, are perhaps better understood at lower regional levels. For example, Brook et al. (2013) questioned whether global tipping points exist in terms of biodiversity, as there is spatial ­heterogeneity in drivers and responses and as links between ecosystems on different continents can be weak as oceans and mountains lie between them. PB II goes some way to meeting this kind of criticism, in order to depict the role of the biosphere in earth system functioning and loss of biodiversity at the levels of both global and biome/large ecosystem levels has resulted in the provisional use of the Biodiversity Intactness Index which aims to assess changes in population richness as a result of human interference. This indicator is employed even though it has so far only been applied to southern Africa’s terrestrial biomes and thus is still very much work in progress. At one level, work in progress can be positively seen as part of the scientific endeavour, but if one of the aims is to guide human development, one must question the boundaries current value for policy decisions as policy makers may well desire a more robust indicator. The degree of risk is unclear. PB I asserted that the authors are concerned with normative judgements as to what is safe, dangerous and unacceptable, and the limits advanced in BP I have been challenged on these grounds. This was the case with land use change. Bass (2009) argued that the boundary of 15% was arbitrary and thus policy makers would question the need to take heed of it and will those whose well-being is affected by positive land use change. Why not 20%? PB II changed the criteria completely, land use change is now land system change and concentrates on forest cover which is related to “climate-exchange of energy, water and momentum between the land surface and atmosphere” (5). The criteria are more nuanced and regional in that different boundaries are set for different forest biomes because they affect the climate system in different ways temperate forests having a weaker effect than tropical and boreal forests. However, the change in criteria raises the question of whether change in land use relating to cropland is significant or not. If not, we must ask why it was included in PB I, and if so why it is not included in PB II perhaps without a specified boundary as is the case with novel entities. We are not informed as to why cropland was dropped altogether. An additional problem is that in terms of this boundary, PB I and PB II are not comparable and perhaps more worryingly, we were within the planetary boundary as defined by PB

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I but beyond it as defined by PB II. All in all, such criticisms do not rule out the significance of the approach, but whilst the approach has strong heuristic value, it perhaps best considered as important work in progress. If an attempt to combine them with the capability approach is made, it should be remembered that PBs are primarily planetary and environmental indicators may well be needed at all levels down to the local. 3.4.3  The Sustainable Development Goals Having been agreed by 193 nations, which are seldom in agreement with each other, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are of major political and policy importance. They are transformational in several ways. Firstly, they are sustainable development goals rather than just development goals, and if nothing else they bring the salience of the environment to the fore, it is not an accidental add on as was the case with the Millennium Development Goals. Secondly, they apply to all countries and not just developing countries and thus, in theory, break with the developed/developing country dichotomy. Sustainability is for all. Thirdly, the Millennium Development Goals tended to be understood and applied separately. The SDGs should be integrated. The SDGs clearly affect one another. For example, the IPCC produce a series of Representative Concentration Pathways to establish scenarios for climate change (Goal 13). These scenarios are based on a number of factors of which one is population growth. Slower population growth will reduce the number of GHG emissions, we know that education and thus SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being includes access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, which together with SDG 4, Quality Education, and Goal 5, Gender Equality if met should ensure that more girls go to school which the empirical evidence suggests will reduce population growth (Sen 1999). Obviously, population growth has other effects as well such as deforestation which not only increases GHG emissions but also decreases carbon sequestration (Sharma 2003). Here I shall concentrate on Goals 14, Life Below Water: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development, and 15 Life on Land: Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss as examples of the problems involved. Together they provide a much broader set of indicators and issues than does the PB approach. Of the approaches discussed here, the SDGs provide by far the most comprehensive set of environmental (and development) indicators. In many ways

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they could be used to add specific content to the CNC and ecosystem services approaches offered by capability authors (Leβmann 2011; Polishchuk and Rauschmayer 2012; Pélenc and Dubois, this volume), this is not to say that these authors endorse the SDGs. The oceans play a central role to human activity and development providing the livelihood for an estimate 3 billion people and 200 million jobs and play a vital role in climate stability, oxygen generation, nutrient cycling, food production and coastal protection. Thus, the elevation of the oceans from a minor role in the Millennium Development Goals to a SDG is of great importance in itself. It has been argued that “Goal 14 is ambitious, timely and backed by a significant body of natural and social science. The targets are all relevant and support sustainable development of the ocean in terms of currently dominant industries” (International Council for Science 2015). The Goal’s ten targets go beyond the one set by the PB approach and include both scientific and social aspects (such as subsidies). The problems lie more in the details. Thus, target 14.1 ‘By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution’ is unclear as one wonders why if we prevent marine pollution of all kinds, it needs to be ‘significantly reduced’. This is then translated into the indicator 14.1.1 ‘Index of coastal eutrophication and floating plastic debris density’ which does not include all forms of pollution or tell us what a significant reduction is. Hence the operationalization of the goal decreases its value. The Goal has been criticised for not being forward looking. There is no mention of the possible significance of Blue Carbon which is accumulated in coastal and marine ecosystems, in particular mangroves, salt marshes and sea grasses all of which can sequester carbon. Conversely, they emit CO2 when they are destroyed (over 1  billion tons per  annum) http:// thebluecarboninitiative.org. Whilst it might be counter argued that this is covered by 14.2 ‘By 2020, sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems’, the target concentrates on maintaining the present state of affairs rather than looking forward. Goal 15 is much fuller than the other approaches discussed here. It also works at different scales relating to many ecosystems. As discussed earlier, PB II discarded the cropland indicator of land use change. By comparison, the SDGs not only include sustainable forest management, but also combating desertification and land degradation. It also points to the significance of mountain areas as there is:

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a direct correlation between the green coverage of mountain areas and their state of health, and as a consequence their capacity of fulfilling their ecosystem roles. Monitoring mountain vegetation changes over time provides an adequate measure of the status of conservation of mountain ecosystems.

A reduction in the “Green Cover Index” will be generally linked to overgrazing, land clearing, urbanization, forest exploitation, timber extraction, fuelwood collection, fire. Its increase will be due to vegetation growth possibly linked to land restoration, reforestation or afforestation programmes. (UN 2017)

Such detail is highly welcome but as with SDG 14 some of the indicators are unclear. For example, 15.1 states: By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements and has two indicators: 15.1.1 Forest area as a proportion of total land area. 15.1.2 Proportion of important sites for terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity that are covered by protected areas, by ecosystem type.

The overall goal is exceedingly important and relates to many of the ecosystems which are essential for human well-being. However, the indicators are unclear. They do not tell us what proportion is acceptable. Unlike BP II, 15.1.1 is global and does not refer the relative importance of different types of forest cover. Furthermore 15.1.2 “covered by protected areas” does not inform us how much area should be protected. Is the totality of areas already protected sufficient? The targets have been criticised for paying insufficient attention to “agro-ecosystems, fresh- water inland ecosystems, arid or semi-arid systems, coastal systems) or drivers of change (e.g. habitat loss and fragmentation, over-exploitation, biological invasions, pollution”. While there is some truth in this criticism and strengthening some indicators would be desirable, it could be argued that coastal systems are covered by SDG 14 and that SDG 12 goes some way to dealing with pollution. While such criticisms call for improvements, it does not mean that the goals “are a mushy collection of platitudes that will fail on every ­dimension”

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as claimed by William Easterly (FT 15/09/2015). It is important that the role of the environment for human well-being is underlined. Placing income poverty at the “head of a very short list” The Economist (26/03/2015) or growth would prefer would miss out on the complexity of issues. The SDGs and their relationships to both the capability and human security approaches are also taken up in the final chapter of this book

3.5   Legitimacy For Parris and Kates, legitimacy refers to “the perception that the production of the measurement system is respectful of stakeholders’ divergent values and beliefs, unbiased, and fair in its treatment of opposing views and interests” (Parris and Kates 2003, p.  270). It is not clear why we should just be concerned with the perception rather than reality, but the general point is that measurement systems have to be justifiable to stakeholders, or in Scanlonian terms, to others on grounds that cannot be reasonably rejected. The essential question was asked by Steve Bass (2009) referred to above, if there is no or little scientific consensus concerning a boundary or target, why should policy makers and people, especially given population pressures respect that boundary or target? Furthermore, as Brewer (2008) points out in relation to the phosphorous PB, fertilizers have been central to maintaining people’s existence. Setting limits without providing alternatives will be of little value as food “is not an option” (Brewer 2009, p. 118). Parris and Kates address the legitimacy problem by ascertaining who or which groups are involved in the decisions about the indicators. For the World Bank’s ANS approach, the EF, and the planetary boundaries approach, the answer is self-appointed experts who have an academic background. Thereafter there is interaction with other academics, governments, NGOs, and a wider audience. In other words, the decisions are essentially top-down. The SDGs are probably the largest global consultation effort yet seen, the UN also has the money to make this possible, but of the indicators assess here, it is difficult to see the influence of local people. As Rockström et al. (2009) assert, sustainability indicators are normative. Here there are two interrelated normative issues. The point of the indicators is that they should inform us whether development is sustainable or not, this then relates to Sen’s view of development as an expansion of the freedoms we have to live the lives we value. Elsewhere I have defined sustainable development as a process of expanding the real freedoms that

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people value which are in accordance with principles that cannot be reasonably rejected by others (Crabtree 2010, 2012, 2013), which I have termed a legitimate freedom approach. In other words, the limits to sustainable development depend on justification to others. The concept of reasonable rejection draws on the work of Thomas Scanlon who offers a contractualist approach to ethics (Scanlon 1998) which a number of other philosophers have also employed (Barry 1995; Parfit 2011; Forst 2007). For Scanlon, judgments of right and wrong center on justification to others: … they are judgments about what would be permitted by principles that could not reasonably be rejected, by people who were moved to find principles for the general regulation of behavior that others, similarly motivated, could not reasonably reject. (Scanlon 1998, p. 4)

The fundamental idea in Scanlon’s approach is that an action is morally wrong if the actor cannot justify his or her action to others in accordance with principles that they could not reasonably reject. The Scanlonian formulation ensures impartiality by giving everyone the right of veto if they can reasonably reject a principle. It is possible that Parris and Kates’ idea of respect could be interpreted in that way though they do not refer to Scanlon. Revisiting the planetary boundaries approach, Rockström et al. (2009) define the boundaries in relation to what may be deleterious for mankind as a whole. This is clearly appealing for if “deleterious to mankind” is not wrong, what is? It is challenging to justify large scale catastrophes when we could prevent them. But the question is why the boundary is set at mankind as a whole. For example, the Alliance of Small Island States (SIDS) accused India (or more correctly, the Indian government) of ‘hiding behind poverty’ whilst the SIDS drown (Thaker and Leiserowitz 2014). Indian CO2 emissions are not justifiable to the SIDS as disappearing is worse than poverty. Again, if we turn to forest cover, it is not clear what global indicators mean for local or regional people. For indigenous tribes, the destruction of their forests may well go beyond their environmental boundaries even if the destruction falls within the global or biome boundaries. A common problem for all the indicators discussed here is that the concerns of the majority override the concerns of the minorities despite the burdens.

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3.6   Conclusion Where does this leave us? All the indicators discussed above are wanting both in terms of scientific credibility and legitimacy; consequently, there are weaknesses in terms of policy recommendations. None of the indicators can be considered very strong. These are summed up in. The ANS approach is weak on scientific credibility because of the substitutability problem and because of the very limited number of indicators involved. It achieved mixed value in terms of policy because, despite its scientific weaknesses it is supported by the World Bank. It is weak in terms of legitimacy as it is mainly World Bank driven and has little reference to other stakeholders. Ecological Footprint analysis is again weak with respect to scientific credibility because of conversion problems related to environmental factors and it is very limited in the number of issues it takes onto account. It has mixed policy strength as it has been taken up at a number of levels including country consultations. Its legitimacy is mixed because it does take a variety of stakeholders into account, but clearly excludes others who might have environmental problems that are not included in the EF. The PB approach has mixed scientific credibility because the evidence for some of the boundaries is weak and as the authors themselves make clear sometimes missing. The idea has been recognised at several levels and thus has had mixed policy influence. However, it is weak in terms of legitimacy as it is driven by academics without reference to other stakeholders who might reasonably reject the boundaries. At one level, the SDGs have a strong scientific basis but the actual indicators are often unclear. It has very strong policy support at national and international levels, though implementation might be another matter, and it has mixed legitimacy for while it has attempted to include a wide variety of stakeholders, the final decisions have been top down. This chapter has argued against the use of composite indicators in conjunction with the capability approach (although I have done so in Crabtree 2012). Rather individual indicators should be employed. These indicators should relate to different scales (planetary, biome, ecosystem) which suggests that work undertaken within the capability approach which refers to ecosystems only is too narrow (ecologists might like to add lower levels such as populations, communities and individual organisms depending on the purpose (Begon et al. 2014). Indicators should also be sensitive to the reasons various stakeholders have for reasonably rejecting them.

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At a general level, all indicators show that we are living unsustainably, at least on some dimensions, and that business as usual trajectories will lead us to tipping points and beyond. This has important consequences for the capabilities approach, which has largely ignored sustainability issues. It is not enough for the capabilities approach to talk about increasing human development; we need to ask how that development will be achieved. Thus, restricting capabilities thinking to capabilities and functionings without taking the consequences of functionings for people and the environment into account is no longer viable. Sen defines development a process of increasing freedoms. A more sustainable development may require substantial reductions in our freedoms. We need to establish which freedoms are legitimate.

References Alkire, S. (2005). Valuing Freedoms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Amnesty International. (2017). Politiet Myrder Løs I Filippinerne Nr 2 Juni. Anand, S., & Sen, A. (2000). Human Development and Economic Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(00)00071-1. Barry, B. (1995). Justice as Impartiality. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bass, S. (2009). Planetary Boundaries: Keep Off the Grass. Nature Reports Climate Change, 3(0910), 113–114. https://doi.org/10.1038/climate.2009.94. Begon, M., Howarth, R.  W., & Townsend, C.  R. (2014). Essentials of Ecology. India: Wiley Global Education. Brand, F. (2009). Critical Natural Capital Revisited: Ecological Resilience and Sustainable Development. Ecological Economics, 68(3), 605–612. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.09.013. Brand, F. (2010, April 20). Critical Natural Capital. Retrieved from www. eoearth.org/view/article/151536. Brewer, P. (2009). Planetary Boundaries: Consider All Consequences. Nature Reports Climate Change, 3(0910), 117–118. https://doi.org/10.1038/ climate.2009.98. Brook, B. W., Ellis, E. C., Perring, M. P., Mackay, A. W., & Blomqvist, L. (2013). Does the Terrestrial Biosphere Have Planetary Tipping Points? Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 28(7), 396–401. Costanza, R., D’Arge, R., De Groot, R., Farber, S., Grasso, M., Hannon, B., & Van den Belt, M. (1997). The Value of the World’s Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital. Nature, 387(6630), 253–260. https://doi.org/10.1038/387253a0. Crabtree, A. (2010). Sustainable Development, Capabilities and the Missing Case of Mental Health. In K. A. Nielsen, B. Elling, M. Figueroa, & E. Jelsoe (Eds.), A New Agenda for Sustainability (pp. 159–176). Aldershot: Ashgate.

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Crabtree, A. (2012). A Legitimate Freedom Approach to Sustainability: Sen, Scanlon and the Inadequacy of the Human Development Index. International Journal of Social Quality, 2(1), 24–40. https://doi.org/10.3167/ IJSQ.2012.020103. Crabtree, A. (2013). Sustainable Development: Does the Capability Approach Have Anything to Offer? Outlining a Legitimate Freedom Approach. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 14, 40–57. https://doi.org/10.108 0/19452829.2012.748721. Easterly, W. (2015). Financial Times FT 15/09/2015. Ecological Footprint Network. (2009). Global Footprint Network response to the “Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress” (or “Stiglitz Commission”) Report. Retrieved from http://www.footprintnetwork.org/images/uploads/GlobalFootprint Network Stiglitzresponse.pd. Ekins, P. (2003). Identifying Critical Natural Capital. Ecological Economics, 44(2– 3), 277–292. Fitoussi, J., & Malik, K. (2013). Choices, Capabilities and Sustainability. Retrieved from http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdro_malik_fitoussi.pdf. Forst, R. (2007). The Right to Justification. New  York, NY: Columbia University Press. Galli, A., Wiedmann, T., Ercin, E., Knoblauch, D., Ewing, B., & Giljum, S. (2012). Integrating Ecological, Carbon and Water Footprint Into a “Footprint Family” of Indicators: Definition and Role in Tracking Human Pressure on the Planet. Ecological Indicators, 16, 100–112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ecolind.2011.06.017. Goodland, R. (1995). The Concept of Environmental Sustainability. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 26(1), 1–24. Goodland, R., & Daly, H. (1996). Environmental Sustainability: Universal and Non‐negotiable. Ecological applications, 6(4), 1002–1017. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2007). Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Retrieved from https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_synthesis_report.htm. International Council for Science. (2015). Report: Review of Targets for the Sustainable Development Goals: The Science Perspective. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 9(2), 237–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/0973 408215600602h. Kleijn, D., Winfree, R., Bartomeus, I., Carvalheiro, L. G., Henry, M., Isaacs, R., ... & Ricketts, T.  H. (2015). Delivery of Crop Pollination Services Is an Insufficient Argument for Wild Pollinator Conservation. Nature Communications, 6, 7414.

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Leßmann, O. (2011). Sustainability as a Challenge to the Capability Approach. In F. Rauschmayer, I. Omann, & J. Frühmann (Eds.), Sustainable Development: Capabilities, Needs, and Well-Being (pp. 43–61). New York, NY: Routledge. Mayers, K., Koomey, J., Hall, R., Bauer, M., France, C., & Webb, A. (2015). The Carbon Footprint of Games Distribution. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 19(3), 402–415. Moran, D. D., Wackernagel, M., Kitzes, J. a., Goldnger, S. H., & Boutaud, A. (2008). Measuring Sustainable Development—Nation by Nation. Ecological Economics, 64(3), 470–474. Neumayer, E. (2012). Human Development and Sustainability. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 13(4), 561–579. https://doi.org/10.1080/19 452829.2012.693067. Nussbaum, M.  C. (2006). Frontiers of Justice. Cumberland, RI: Harvard University Press. Parfit, D. (2011). On What Matters (Vol. 1 and 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Parris, T. M., & Kates, R. W. (2003). Characterizing and Measuring Sustainable Development. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 28(1), 559–586. Polishchuk, Y., & Rauschmayer, F. (2012). Beyond “Benefits”? Looking at Ecosystem Services Through the Capability Approach. Ecological Economics, 81, 103–111. Ring, I., Hansjürgens, B., Elmqvist, T., Wittmer, H., & Sukhdev, P. (2010). Challenges in Framing the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: The TEEB Initiative. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 2(1), 15–26. Robeyns, I. (2005). The Capability Approach: A Theoretical Survey. Journal of Human Development, 6(1), 93–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 146498805200034266. Rockström, J., & Noone, K. (2009). Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity. Ecology and Society, 14(2). Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, A., Chapin, F. S., Lambin, E. F., & Foley, J.  A. (2009). A Safe Operating Space for Humanity. Nature, 461, 472–475. https://doi.org/10.1038/461472a. Scanlon, T. M. (1998). What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schröter, M., Zanden, E. H., Oudenhoven, A. P., Remme, R. P., Serna-Chavez, H. M., Groot, R. S., & Opdam, P. (2014). Ecosystem Services as a Contested Concept: A Synthesis of Critique and Counter-Arguments. Conservation Letters, 7, 514–523. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. (2010). Global Biodiversity Outlook 3. Montréal. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from https://www.cbd. int/gbo3/. Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. London: Oxford University Press.

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Sharma, U. C. (2003). Impact of Population Growth and Climate Change on the Quantity and Quality of Water Resources in the Northeast of India. International Association of Hydrological Sciences, Publication, 281, 349–357. Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S.  E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E.  M., … Folke, C. (2015). Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development on a Changing Planet. Science, 347(6223), 1259855. Stiglitz, J. E., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, J.-P. (2009). Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. Retrieved from http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/Stiglitzreport.pdf. Thaker, J., & Leiserowitz, A. (2014). Shifting Discourses of Climate Change in India. Climatic Change, 123, 107–119. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10584-014-1059-6. The Economist. (2015, March 26). The 169 Commandments. United Nations. (2017). Green Cover Index. Retrieved July 1, 2018, from https:// unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-15-04-02.pdf. World Wildlife Fund for Nature. (2012). Living Planet Report 2012. Retrieved from http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/ living_planet_report/2012_lpr.

CHAPTER 4

Sustaining Human Well-Being Across Time and Space—Sustainable Development, Justice and the Capability Approach Felix Rauschmayer, Torsten Masson, Ortrud Leβmann, and Rebecca Gutwald

4.1   Introduction Sustainable development (henceforth “SD”)1 comprises of a number of more or less inter-related but not necessarily compatible societal goals such as long-term environmental protection, economic growth and social justice. Although politicians, scientists, and industry representatives fre-

F. Rauschmayer (deceased) T. Masson University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany O. Leβmann (*) University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] R. Gutwald Munich School of Philosophy, Munich, Germany © The Author(s) 2020 A. Crabtree (ed.), Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38905-5_4

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quently refer to SD, its conceptual core is hard to grasp. In the face of existing ambiguities some authors even go as far as to dismiss the notion completely (e.g. Redclift 2005) or to turn from substantial to more procedurally oriented definitions (Enquete-Kommission 1998; Leach ­ et al. 2012). We believe that the ideas and ambitions behind the notion of SD are far too important to dispense with it (cf. Schultz et al. 2008) even if no agreement on a substantial definition can be reached. According to Kopfmüller et al. (2001, p. 15) conceptual reflections about SD can relate to a normative or a strategic level: The normative level describes the ethical principles underpinning SD (e.g. intra- and intergenerational justice) and the basic SD rules that apply these principles to general thematic fields (e.g. sustainable use of renewable energy resources). The strategic level translates SD rules into concrete and usually context-specific SD goals and action strategies. The scientific (and not least the political) discourse has put much emphasis on strategic SD issues (e.g. substitution potentials of natural and man-made capital; Neumayer 1999, 2010), but tends to neglect the normative question of what should be sustained (axiological question). Also environmentalists, such as those present at the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) Renowned Thinkers Meeting in 2006 state the importance of recapturing the ends of SD. As Adams illuminatingly wrote: “Just as Amartya Sen’s concept of ‘development as freedom’ (the expansion of the real freedoms that people enjoy; Sen 2001) transforms understanding of attempts to achieve development, so too there is a need to concentrate not on the means to achieve sustainability, but on ends” (Adams 2006, p. 12). As can be shown, this question is connected to the ethical grounding of SD. Usually definitions of sustainability concern both intra- and intergenerational justice. The status of intergenerational justice for SD, however, has been subject to much discussion. It is, for instance, unclear whether intergenerational justice is the main normative focus of SD or whether we need other ethical principles, e.g. of care or benevolence, to argue for the case of sustaining well-being for future people. A philosophically grounded theory of justice may take many forms. The normative consequences of such a theory may therefore be radically different depending on which basic tenets of justice we choose. As Sen and Nussbaum argue, if justice merely focuses on the distribution and conversation of resources, some important facets of quality of life may be neglected (Sen 2009; Nussbaum 2011). As a consequence, the question which specific ethical principles underlie SD is difficult to answer.

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As we shall explain below, this is one reason to introduce the capability approach (henceforth “CA”) into the discussion of SD. The CA may provide an answer to both, the axiological question (What to sustain?) and the related but more comprehensive need to conceptualise the ethical underpinnings of SD.  The first part of the chapter (Sects. 4.2 and 4.3) asks whether or not it is worthwhile to conceptualise SD in terms of substantial freedoms (capabilities), as opposed to a focus on natural capital, economic growth or needs satisfaction. The second part (Sects. 4.4 and 4.5) concerns the CA’s potential to function as a full-fledged theory of intergenerational justice and to overcome the specific problems posed by the intergenerational perspective that SD poses. In this chapter, we aim to show the close link between SD and the question of intergenerational justice. We also relate the CA to philosophical propositions about justice. Although this concerns both the question of what to sustain as well as the CA’s general plausibility as a theory of justice, we concentrate on the latter as the primary aim of the present paper. In relation to this we seek to answer two central questions: I) Does the CA qualify as a theory of intergenerational justice? II) How can the CA help to concretise ethical principles underpinning SD? The chapter is structured as follows: Part 2 tracks the international career of the concept of sustainability throughout recent history and illustrates some of its conceptual ambiguities. Part 3 presents capabilities as a very plausible approach for answering the question of what to sustain. It shows how this question is essentially tied to issues of justice. Part 4 analyses the CA’s potential as a basis for a theory of intergenerational justice. We identify four categories of justice that a theory of intergenerational justice should encompass: (i) the metric of justice, i.e. the burdens and benefits to be distributed; (ii) principles of distribution; (iii) the scope of the theory; (iv) philosophical foundation and justification. We claim that the CA provides valuable insights for (i) and (iii), and some for (ii). It has to be expanded though in other areas as we shall discuss. Particularly, we explore if the CA can cope with the specifics of intergenerational justice, namely the non-identity problem. Finally, part 5 reflects on previous findings (parts 3 & 4) with respect to the CA’s own capability to function as a theoretical basis for the ethical principles of SD.

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4.2   Sustainability of What? Ecological and Developmental Aspirations in Recent SD History The contemporary SD discourse can be traced back to the second half of the twentieth century, when Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” (1962) and Galbraith’s “Affluent Society” (1958) launched (mostly separate) debates about the environmental and social impacts of the post-war development model (see Fig.  4.1). Since then, the identification of development (or progress) with economic growth has been questioned repeatedly (Stiglitz et al. 2009; Baker 2006; Drèze and Sen 2013). During the 1960s, “environmental concerns were viewed largely as an `add-on’ to development,

Fig. 4.1  Timeline of sustainable development discourse. (Own source, partly based on Baker 2006)

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seldom as an integral `build-in’ (Pezzoli 1997, p. 552). It was the much-­ debated study “Limits to Growth” (Meadows et al. 1972) which, based on a system dynamics approach, provided global-scale scenarios about natural resource depletion and socio-economic development. Preceding the now famous Brundtland report, (WCED 1987) the Club of Rome report concluded that “It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic stability that is sustainable far into the future (Meadows et al. 1972). The state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his individual human potential” (Meadows et al. 1972, p. 24—cited in Pezzoli 1997, p.  551). Also in 1972, the UN conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm acknowledged the interdependence of environmental and developmental issues and started to push forward environmental concerns on the political agenda (UN 1972). Nevertheless it was only in 1980 that the IUCN’s (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, now called World Conservation Union) World Conservation Strategy (WCS) helped the term sustainable development to international prominence (IUCN 1980). The WCS described SD first and foremost as an environmental concept, aiming to sustain the global ecosystem’s carrying capacity for further development (Elliot 2006). In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) proposed a definition that detached SD from its environmental focus. According to the WCED, sustainable development has to meet “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987, p. 43). The final WCED report (i.e., Brundtland report) strived to settle down environmental and social issues, thereby shifting SD from nature preservation to the broader issue of sustained human well-being. On the strategy level, the WCED strongly advocated economic growth to help satisfy current and future generations’ needs. Its final report suggests “a five- to tenfold increase in manufacturing output […] just to raise developing world consumption of manufactured goods to industrialized world levels” (WCED 1987, p. 66). However, critics argued that continued growth, especially at the proposed rates, would exacerbate existing environmental problems rather than contribute to their solution (Wackernagel and Rees 1997). The works of the WCED stimulated manifold discussions about sustainability goals, strategies and the ideas behind the concept, including criticism of SD (rhetoric) as neo-imperialistic (i.e., aiming to prolong the

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economic dependency of the global South under the disguise of environmental protection; see Eblinghaus and Stickler 1996) as well as environmentalists’ claims for a stronger commitment to nature protection (Friends of the Earth 1993). In 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro established SD as the guiding principle of human development for the upcoming twenty-first century. In contrast to the WCS, the documents presented in Rio (i.e., Rio Declaration, Agenda 21; UN 1993) adopted a multidimensional notion of sustainability (ecological, economic, social and institutional sustainability) that has provided a reference point for subsequent conceptualisations of SD (e.g. Eurostat 2011; UN 2008, 2015; see also Drexhage and Murphy 2010). Multidimensional SD models, such as pillar, multi-thematic and capital models, have contributed to the thematic broadening of SD. As in the case of the Agenda 21 (UN 1993), pillar models usually contain ecological, social and economic pillars, whereas multi-thematic approaches such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; UN 2015) (preceded by e.g. Eurostat 2011; UN 2007; Kopfmüller et al. 2001) propose cross-cutting sustainability goals (e.g., sustainable production and consumption, social inclusion, natural resource protection) while capital models (Serageldin and Steer 1994) define their SD components as capital forms (e.g. natural capital or social capital), thus applying a rather economically colored SD rhetoric. They subsume numerous economic, social and ecological issues under the heading of SD, but more often than not fail to address potential goal conflicts properly. For example, the WCED’s focus on (more or less unspecified forms of) economic growth as a development strategy potentially conflicts with their call for long-term environmental protection (e.g., protection of biodiversity)—given that an absolute decoupling of growth and resource use currently seems rather utopic. In a similar vein, increases of public health and education expenditures (as suggested by the Agenda 21) may impede communities’ ability to keep public budgets “financially sustainable”. Multidimensional models have a somewhat complicated answer to the question of what to sustain, as they have proposed various SD goals and/ or have referred to rather general ideas of sustainable quality of life or human well-being respectively. For example, Kopfmüller et al. (2001) lists 15 principles of sustainable development, spanning diverse issues such as natural resource efficiency, cultural diversity, or economy’s innovative capacity. The authors acknowledge potential goal conflicts and tackle this problem by generally referring to minimum standards (thresholds) for

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their SD principles. That is, development can only be considered sustainable, if all principles are fulfilled beyond a minimum standard—a concept, however, they do not elaborate on. Similarly, the framework proposed by the Commission on Sustainable Development contains more than 70 sustainability indicators (UN 2007), among others indicators of poverty, health, education, economic development and global environmental challenges. However, the report addresses potential (goal) trade-offs only indirectly by identifying linkages between their thematic SD areas. Although supported by the United Nations resolutions of 1997 (UN 1997), the Johannesburg Earth summit in 2002 (UN 2002a, b) and the Rio+20 conference in 2012 (UN 2012), multidimensional models were not thoroughly welcomed by actors who gave priority to ecological concerns. Especially environmentalists and proponents of deep ecology feared a dilution of environmental protection efforts in favour of economic gains (BUND & MISEREOR 1996; Friends of the Earth 1995). As a consequence, SD concepts with a strong environmental focus have gained support during the 1990s and the 2000s (e.g. Daly and Townsend 1993; Friends of the Earth 1995). For example “Sustainable Germany” (BUND & MISEREOR 1996), a study jointly funded by German environmentalist and developmentalist organisations, advocates centre stage for ecological SD goals, developing scenarios for eco-friendly production and consumption. Despite such claims to (re)focus sustainability on environmental issues, multidimensional SD notions have predominated the general sustainability debate for the last two decades. However, the considerable complexity and the persisting conceptual ambiguities of SD have been fed into a gradual shift in the scientific SD interest (Azapagic et al. 2005). Attempts to provide meta-level, comprehensive SD concepts and their operationalizations were accompanied in large by field- and problem-specific work (e.g. on climate change). An example for this is the prominent role of green economy in the resolutions of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012 to develop a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs) (Rio+20 conference, UN 2012). Although the disaggregation of SD into more specific concepts may be suitable on the strategic (i.e., implementation) level, it has yet to prove its feasibility for the overall normative question of what to sustain. With its notion of sustainability, the Brundtland report and subsequent contributions (Rio documents etc.) promised to integrate two vast issues, environmental deterioration and human development, in a mutually reinforcing way (Robinson 2004). While not clarifying the meaning of SD on

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a conceptual level, the SDGs constitute a major milestone towards an applicable, internationally negotiated, comprehensive and detailed understanding of SD. Consisting of 17 goals that cover a holistic range of cross-­ cutting issues the development of the SDGs aims to overcome the pillar-based notion of SD (Sachs 2015). It is centred on the idea of improving (human) well-being on a global level and puts emphasis on the issue of social inequality while clearly addressing the core environmental problems. A major achievement is that the SDGs are for all countries: developing, newly industrialized and industrialized. Further, the goals come along with proposals for indicators to monitor progress over the next 15 years. Although the proposed indicators are a compromise between best concepts for measurement and availability of data (SDSN 2016 makes further suggestions), they make sure that the SDGs are meant to be implemented and monitored from the start. As shown above, SD still presents itself as a contested concept although it has reclaimed some ground with the launch of the SDGs (UN 2015). In the light of definitional and conceptual difficulties, some authors suggest to replace sustainability with other, although not necessarily less ambiguous concepts (e.g., resilience; Edwards 2010; Walker and Salt 2006) while others still view SD as capable of addressing some of the fundamental challenges for humanity (Hopwood et al. 2005; Adams 2006). However, to make use of this potential, SD “needs more clarity of meaning, concentrating on sustainable livelihoods and well-being rather than well-having” (Hopwood et al. 2005, p. 38). The next section suggests substantial freedoms or capabilities (instead of needs fulfilment or economic growth) as basis for SD concepts and hence as an answer to the question what to sustain. Furthermore, we aim to show how the question what to sustain relates to the ethical principles of SD (intra- and intergenerational justice).

4.3   Can Capabilities Qualify as the Goals of SD? Sustainable development is, as shown in the previous section, a contested concept. Nevertheless, the WCED’s definition (WCED 1987) has been used as a reference point for many sustainability approaches. The WCED answers the question of what to sustain by defining SD with sustaining the ability to satisfy people’s needs within and across generations. Yet, the concept of needs has not received the attention one would have expected by the subsequent SD discourse (Rauschmayer et al. 2011; Boulanger 2008;

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Jackson 2004; Mebratu 1998) that rather focused on questions of balancing economic, ecological, and social dimensions of sustainability or on the substitutability of man-made and natural capital. Apart from the basic needs approach (Streeten 1981) that inspired the Brundtland commission and strived to overcome the narrow notion of well-being proposed by Paretian welfare economics, various other concepts of needs exist. They range from relatively general philosophical contributions (e.g. Wiggins 1987; Reader 2005; O’Neill 2011) over works from social psychology and sociology (e.g. Deci and Ryan 2000; Doyal and Gough 1991) to more disaggregated lists of human needs (e.g. the fundamental needs lists by Max-Neef et al. 1991). The very ontological status of needs, the level of concretisation and their empirical verification differ across the concepts. For example, understanding and participation are listed as separate fundamental needs by Max-Neef (ibid.), but both relate to the need for competence within self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan 2000). While some needs theories (Max-Neef et al. 1991; Wiggins 1987) stress the context-specific nature of need satisfaction, others do not sufficiently distinguish this aspect. For example, while basic needs such as being well fed, healthy, and socially attached may well be regarded as relevant for human well-being with some (empirical and possibly normative) universality, the concrete satisfaction of strategies such as eating bread and taking medicine depend on personal, social, environmental and cultural aspects. The neglect of the context dependence of strategies has further led to somewhat paternalistic proposals of satisfaction strategies in the realm of national and international politics. As Sen (1983, pp. 513–514) analyses, the basic needs approach was especially prone to this since it defined needs in terms of commodities (the same concern has been raised with regard to the WCED use of ‘needs’, Crabtree 2010). In summary, needs fulfilment as an answer to the question what to sustain has its drawbacks: Some approaches defining few but fundamental needs categories are too unspecific and allow varying concretisations across space and time, thus making operationalization a demanding task that can only be undertaken through local exercises. This, in turn, makes intercultural and, a fortiori, intergenerational comparisons impossible. Other concepts provide more detailed lists without any apparent conceptual link (e.g. WCED 1987). Generalisation and local concretisation through participation (which, according to Christen and Schmidt 2011 is a fundamental requirement for SD) seem to contradict each other—even in the anthropologically rather closed field of subsistence.

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Hence, when looking for alternatives, the capability approach, that has been developed in part as an answer to limitations of basic needs approaches in human development (Sen 1983), comes to mind. It can address some of these drawbacks (Alkire 2005). Consequently, Anand and Sen proposed the replacement of “needs” in the Brundtland definition by “capabilities”, that is the freedoms to live a worthwhile life (Anand and Sen 2000). This is important if we wish to recapture the ends of sustainability. However, it is not clear whether the CA can really be used for more than a meaningful metaphor of what is to sustain: In other works, we argue that dealing with SD poses several challenges to the CA that are far from being resolved (Leβmann 2011; Rauschmayer and Leβmann 2011; Leβmann and Rauschmayer 2013). More specifically, Crabtree (2013) complains about Sen’s lack of prioritising some ‘basic’ capabilities. Capabilities, in Sen’s view, encompass needs and at the same time focus on the conditions that enable people to use economic, social, or material resources for a worthwhile life. While needs approaches sometimes imply paternalism and/or do not fully take account of human development’s context specifics, the CA stresses both the role of (individual and social) context and of substantial freedoms for development. Capabilities also encompass narrower economic approaches that consider means for human development, but not the ends. Those narrow approaches focus on how different forms of capital (human capital, natural capital, financial capital, etc.) are constituted, built up, whether they are substitutable, etc., but do not discuss to whether the ends of such human endeavours are valuable. Past SD debates also have tended to neglect the differentiation between means and ends. For example, a considerable part of past SD discussions has dealt with the instrumental value of efficiency- and sufficiency-based SD approaches as well as with the substitutability of different capital forms (Neumayer 1999). Advocates of “strong” sustainability put forward the idea of critical natural capital as elements of nature essential for future human development that should not be disposed of (Ekins et al. 2003; Brand 2009). Proponents of “weak” sustainability usually are more optimistic about the substitutability of natural and man-made capital. They argue for a broad notion of “humanity’s capital” to bequeath the next generation “whatever it takes to achieve a standard of living at least as good as our own and to look after their next generation similarly” (cp. Solow 1993, p 168). In contrast to capital-based SD definitions, capabilities are not primarily concerned with the means to achieve SD, but rather with the normative question of what constitutes human development. A

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further reason for capabilities being a good candidate for answering the question what to sustain since current political and scientific definitions of SD bring together sustainability and quality of life (Costanza et al. 2007; Jackson 2009; Stiglitz et al. 2009). The CA has been used as a conceptual foundation for measuring quality of life and, more specifically, sustainable quality of life (Robeyns and van der Veen 2007 see also Pelenc and Dubois, and Crabtree in this book). Even if sustaining capabilities were considered as the overriding SD goal, we do not automatically know for whom to sustain these freedoms. But this focus is elementary for any idea on justice and, in the context of SD, we have to meet two requirements. First, capabilities are to be sustained in an intra- and intergenerational perspective. While Martha Nussbaum claims to have identified a list of fundamental human capabilities (Nussbaum 2007) which would enable to establish an intragenerational perspective, the selection of capabilities has not been established in an intergenerational perspective (Leβmann and Rauschmayer 2013). Second, the analysis of capabilities to be sustained can be done on a specific local, regional or national level or it can be done on a general level, including all current and future human beings. Whereas such a generalised notion of sustainability allows for intercultural and intergenerational comparisons, it may limit the capabilities of a specific community’s /region’s/ society’s current and future members. A trade-off between both specifications of capabilities seems inevitable—this trade-off reflects discussions within the general SD debate. The sustainability literature essentially agrees that inter- and intragenerational justice are SD’s core ethical principles—although dissent exists about their relationship (Anand and Sen 2000; Redclift 2005; Adams 2006). While some authors advocate equal status for inter- and intragenerational claims (e.g. Christen and Schmidt 2011; WCED 1987) others attach a more instrumental value to intragenerational justice (Brown Weiss 1989). The latter position views intragenerational justice as a precondition for intergenerational justice and more or less subordinates intra- to intergenerational issues to the SD context. Concerning the geographical scope, SD concepts and strategies usually stress their global perspective. However, when broken down to the level of operationalization and concrete SD indicators, the strategies sometimes do not sufficiently address international or global sustainability issues (e.g. German national SD strategy). So, the trade-off mentioned above apparently is well-known to the SD

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debate, but not resolved, and not specific to capability-based definitions of SD. Classifying different understandings of SD, Hopwood et  al. (2005) divide the supporters of SD in three groups according to the weight they attach to social equity and ecological concerns: advocates of status quo (including ecological modernizers), of reforms (e.g. IUCN, factor four), and of a more radical transformation (e.g. World Social Fora, anti-­capitalist or eco-feminist groups). Green economists and Brundtland seem to be on the border between status quo and reforms as Robinson (2004, p. 370) argues insofar as they see development “as synonymous with growth, and therefore […] sustainable development means ameliorating, but not challenging, continued economic growth.” Status quo advocates such as the World Bank or the World Business Council for Sustainable Development take a managerial approach that does not question current top-down decision-­making. In contrast to that, a “transformation view of sustainable development has a strong commitment to social equity, with a view that access to livelihood, good health, resources and economic and political decision making are connected” (ibid., p. 46). This view is exemplified by the theme “Transformations towards Sustainability” of the global Future Earth research platform. Since the concern for justice is at the very heart of ethical considerations in SD, we suggest linking the philosophical debate about theories of justice to SD debates. In the following section we will outline the demands on theories of justice usually made in the realm of philosophy. We then investigate whether the CA matches these demands. The CA is an obvious candidate for this endeavour: Both, Sen (2009) and Nussbaum (2007) claim that the CA amounts to a theory of justice—if only incomplete. Neither of them has specified, though, how a just distribution of capabilities across generations could be conceived of (cf. Watene 2013). In summary the CA can provide an answer to the question of what to sustain that is close to the notion of needs brought forward in the Brundtland definition of sustainability, but avoids some of its conceptual drawbacks. Thereby it fits well to current attempts in political and scientific SD to incorporate quality of life conceptions. Furthermore, the idea of sustaining capabilities accommodates more narrowly defined economic approaches to SD and thus has the potential to incorporate efficiency considerations. As already said, the CA mainly focuses on normative questions of (intragenerational) justice. Hence, the remainder of the paper analyzes

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whether the CA can qualify as a—however incomplete—theory of intergenerational justice and thus contributes to a methodical foundation of SD.

4.4   What Does the CA Have to Offer in a Theory for Inter- and Intragenerational Justice? 4.4.1  Extending Theories of Justice to the Intergenerational Case Many modern philosophical theories of social justice are more or less liberal. They are driven by two main concerns. First, they are motivated by questions of how to distribute advantages among contemporaries in a fair way (often equality is the concern here, but fairness may also be filled out differently e.g. by sufficiency or priority, hence we take fairness to be the broader term here). They therefore ask how to allocate benefits and burdens fairly within a certain society given that these very benefits are scarce (e.g. because they are limited resources). Behind this issue nevertheless is a deeper ethical issue, namely about the goal of justice. Roughly put, theorists of justice are interested in how a national (or supranational) state’s structure can give all people a good start enabling them to live a good life—or at least a decent one (Lamont and Favor 2008). Second, in caring about enabling people to live a good life, liberal theorists of justice respect and promote people’s liberty. Hence, benefits and burdens are allocated in a manner so as not to coerce people into particular forms of life. Liberal theories of justice thus respect freedom and pluralism in lifestyles (Rawls 1971). This way of understanding issues of justice has been considerably influenced by John Rawls’ theory of “justice as fairness”. His pioneering work in modern political philosophy frames justice mainly as a matter of distribution of goods with emphasis on constructing the respective institutional arrangements. Rawls’ theory presents a paradigm of how such theories are structured. Based on his original theory (Rawls 1971) we identify four elements of a theory of social justice (for an extended version of the argument see Gutwald et al. 2014): i. Metric of Justice: how are benefits and burdens to be allocated fairly within a certain group or society? A metric of justice is what Robeyns (2009) calls the “currency of justice”, i.e. what is to be distributed between the parties that have a claim to it. Rawls identifies several

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so-called “primary goods” as those that every rational being would want to have for pursuing her specific conception of the good life. Rawls lists these goods with a clear hierarchy: first and most importantly there are basic liberties, followed by e.g. the freedom of movement, power of offices and social bases of self-respect (Rawls 1971). Other theorists of liberal justice are less explicit about what should be distributed. A good part of them refers to material resources, rights or services (Lamont and Favor 2008). ii. Principles of justice: Based on the selection of an appropriate distributive aim (e.g. equality), principles are formulated which regulate how benefits are distributed (Lamont and Favor 2008). Rawls has formulated two principles of distributive justice. The first one is that everybody is equally entitled to the basic liberties, the second being the famous “difference principle”, which—among other things—allows for inequalities in distribution as long as they benefit the worst off (Rawls 1971) iii. Scope of a theory of justice: Many theorists take it that their theory of justice is universal in a more or less strict sense—i.e. implying validity for all human beings or only for a certain society or group of people. In his earlier body of work Rawls claimed that his liberal account of justice applies to all people alike, regardless of place or time. In his later books, he does, however, confine his theory to the nation state (Rawls 2013). We believe that an account of justice and particularly of intergenerational justice has to specify the scope, e.g. answering questions how many future generations should be included, whether we should remedy past injustices etc. iv. Justification: The principles just mentioned need to be based on philosophical arguments that serve as a theoretical foundation, i.e. it needs to be explained how the theorist arrives at these principles and why they are superior to other ways of justifying distribution. A famous example for a philosophical way to generate principles is Rawls’ model of the original position, in which people that do not know about the contingent facts of their lives, i.e. sitting behind the famous “veil of ignorance”, decide how primary goods should be distributed (Lamont and Favor 2008). This is one of Rawls’ argumentative devices to guarantee fairness in formulating these principles.

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This is a general model of a full philosophy theory of justice. But intergenerational questions seem special. The core question of intergenerational justice is: why do present generations owe something to future generations, what do they owe to them and how much of it? (Ott and Döring 2004) Hence, this form of justice refers to people who have not been born yet—a problem we will return to below. Hence, it differs from justice among contemporaries in raising questions on how to include people who do not exist (yet). It is therefore debatable whether answering this question requires sui generis principles or whether intergenerational justice is a part of a general theory of justice. We see two reasons for the latter. First, as Brian Barry (1997) states, we are well accustomed to thinking about relations among contemporaries and have already developed a normative apparatus to deal with them. So far, we have no similar apparatus for relations to future people. Second, and more importantly we think that demands of intergenerational justice should not differ significantly from intragenerational ones, if a theory of justice is to be truly universal. Imagine that we find that future people may be in serious risk of starvation because we destroyed most arable farmland during our time, the question arises why our obligation to leave enough farmland for future people should be different from the one which we have at present people. If we accept a strictly universal theory of justice we need to say that place does not make a difference here with regard to our obligation provided that we can fulfill it. So, why should time make a difference? At least, we claim, the burden of proof should be on those who want to claim that justice should not extend to future generations. Thus, an opponent of truly universal justice would have to argue why time makes a normative difference here. We will deal with a powerful counter-argument below, i.e. the non-­identity argument. Before, we like to conclude that demands of justice in the four areas outlined above should be adopted to intergenerational justice as follows: i. any approach to intergenerational justice needs a plausible metric of human advantage for present and future generations; ii. the principles of justice have to be specified for distribution within and across generations; iii. the scope of an intergenerational theory of justice needs to be truly universal. We believe that every generation is of equal ethical concern; and

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iv. the philosophical justification has to match the scope of the theory which is a challenge for theories that rely on the idea of mutual cooperation, most notably the accounts of a social contract because there cannot be a contract or any other form of cooperation with future human beings. They would have to find a stipulation or substitute for actual cooperation.

4.4.2  The Capability Approach as a Theory of Intergenerational Justice Even though Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum have both published works on justice and capabilities, the CA is not a theory of justice in the sense specified above. For one, it does not provide us with (ii) explicit principles of justice that specify how to distribute capabilities within a society. Nussbaum (2007) suggests a sufficientarian account of justice, claiming that people are entitled to a basic amount of capabilities until a basic threshold is reached (cf. Kaufman 2006; Meyer and Roser 2009). She does not, however, specify this principle further which leaves open several possibilities of specification (Gutwald et al. 2012), which needs to be done in order to apply the CA to the intergenerational realm. Also, (iv), an elaborate model of justification is missing in the CA. In some works both Nussbaum (2007) and Sen (2009) state that Scanlon’s contractarian model shows promise for justifying distributing capabilities. But neither of them explains this idea in detail; nor do they show how more specific principles can be drawn from Scanlon’s approach. We will pick up this point below again. However, the CA fares better with regard to (i). The metric is, we claim, one of the most fundamental aspects of a theory of justice, particularly when we think of future generations: what is it that we want to preserve for them? Should we focus on preserving as many material resources as possible, even though this policy might curtail the quality of life of present generations severely? What if, thinking positively, technical progress discovers better ways to use resources or even new ones? In this case it seems unnecessary to make many sacrifices now. Also, thinking in the opposite, negative way, people may not be able to use those resources properly, since they lack certain preconditions and abilities to convert them into valuable functionings in their lives. The latter point is captured rather well by the CA, which provides a metric for evaluating a person’s

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well-being (Robeyns 2009). We believe we should extend this idea of ­well-­being from present to future generations. So, the CA provides a (i) metric that is not restricted to the current generations but covers the aspect of scope (iii) by viewing justice as universal. The CA’s concept of well-being constitutes, in our view, mainly an attractive metric for intergenerational justice because of the following three features: (a) the plurality of dimensions; (b) the importance of human agency; and (c) full universality. As regards (a) the plurality of dimensions, we have already mentioned our claim that justice should deal with multiple, irreducible aspects of human life, e.g. political participation, education etc. Specification and weighting of these dimensions is to be based on public reasoning (Sen 2009; Nussbaum 2000). This way plurality is respected, which is crucial for future ethics: Future generations will most likely live a life that is different from ours, because of changes that have always happened during the course of human history. Nowadays, it seems that even more radical change is imminent, such as demographic changes and especially climate change. Still, we assume that congruence regarding some very basic aspects (e.g. elementary human needs) can be conceded, but their lives will be similar to ours in being pluralist and their societies will be multi-faceted. With respect to (b), human agency is central to human well-being for people in the present and in the future. Persons should be conceived of as active agents who choose their way of life from among several possible ways of life open to them—i.e. their capabilities. Hence, enhancing human capabilities now and in future means to protect a wide range of valuable functionings for people to choose from. This includes provision of the necessary material resources, e.g. money, material goods, but also promoting the preconditions for converting them into functionings (Polishchuk and Rauschmayer 2012; Leβmann 2011). In addition, we need to think about how to substitute some capabilities if some resources or other preconditions vanish because of changes (Hence, the CA strongly demands the keeping of options and conditions open to change. Also it is implied that people should be awarded the competencies and abilities to deal with these changes properly. Finally, the CA embraces (c) universality in a full sense, since it was explicitly designed to assess the well-being of people within all nations or societies. As a matter of consequence, the CA has the potential to be extended to other generations of people (Anand and Sen 2000).

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Capabilities then provide the general evaluative perspective from which we judge human well-being and justice. The CA’s choice of metric and scope has some implications concerning justification (iv) and principles (ii) of justice. As already pointed out, strict universality that extends to people all over the world and future human beings demands a model of justification that matches this scope. Hence, using the idea of a social contract or mutual cooperation for justifying intergenerational obligations is at least problematic (Meyer and Roser 2009). The main reason is that people in the future are not really able to cooperate in the same way as those who are still alive. We do not even know who and how many people will be alive. The model of justifying principles of intergenerational thus needs to take this into account. Though Sen does not fully embrace any model of justification, he is sympathetic to Scanlon’s approach (2009). It can be used in conflicts of power because it amounts to “thinking about what could be justified to others on grounds that they, if appropriately motivated, could not reasonably reject” (Scanlon 1998, p.  5). This justification strategy does not require any direct contact to the people affected (e.g. people living in distant areas or times), but results can be interpreted as a counterfactual debate or in weaker form as a kind of veto that individuals possess in a process of reasoning. Nussbaum also suggests that Thomas Scanlon’s contractarian approach should be used as a basis of justifying demands and principles of social justice with regard to capabilities. She argues that Scanlon’s ethical model of reasonable rejection presents a good candidate for testing justifiability of principles of distribution. However, to transfer this idea to political theory, we need to know “what we are distributing” (Nussbaum 2007, p. 151). In our words: Scanlon’s theory would need a metric as we have specified in (i). His principle of reasonable rejection may be used as a test for generating principles of justice. We believe that Nussbaum’s and Sen’s brief references to Scanlon’s approach can be interpreted in this way. 4.4.3  Avoiding the Non-identity Problem However, as Parfit notes in his newer writings (Parfit 2011), Scanlon’s approach has difficulties in dealing with the so-called “non-identity” problem, which is the most prominent theoretical problem a theory of intergenerational justice needs to solve. Derek Parfit (1989, 2011) has described that the following problem arises whenever a normative theory

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tries to cover acts and policies that affect future people. The following example serves to illustrate the difficulty: Suppose a policy maker has to decide between the following two policies: A: Depleting unrenewable resources such as fossil fuels or rare earth metals by using them for maximizing the quality of life of present generations. B: Conserving resources of this kind by looking for alternatives and restricting use of them (without curtailing the quality of life of present people too severely).

Which policy should he choose? Intuitively, most people would opt for B, particularly, if the desired effect of conservation could be reached by little effort on part of the present generation, this would appear to fit in with Sen’s thinking. The problem is, however, that our acts and policies will affect who it is who will later live. As Parfit points out (2011), which particular children we have depends on many details. For instance, had the parents of child X never met or had they conceived their child at a different time, X would never have been born. They might have had another child Y. Hence, if we choose policy A other people will live than if we choose policy B. The people who exist due to our choice of A, however, cannot complain about this choice, since otherwise they would not have existed at all. Different people would have been born, had we chosen B instead. Thus, we cannot say that the particular people born due to choosing A have been harmed—their alternative would have been non-existence, which seems worse than existing with a reduced quality of life. As Parfit points out theories that appeal to “personal” reasons (2011, p. 214) e.g. referring to the interests of particular persons have a problem in dealing with future generations because of this non-identity problem. People in the future cannot complain that they have been harmed by a policy like A, because otherwise they would not have been born. Also, Parfit rightly claims that we want to state that a certain policy is “in itself worse” (2011, p. 219), if people are to lead lives that are worth living— judged from an impersonalist point of view. He criticizes Scanlon for not including so-called “impartial reasons” into his model, reasons that do not refer to personal reason. However, it is debatable whether Scanlon needs to be interpreted in this way. In his “legitimate freedom approach” Andrew Crabtree points out that Parfit misunderstands Scanlon (Crabtree 2013). The latter allows appealing to “generic reasons” that someone would have “in virtue of

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occupying a role with regard to the principle in question” (Scanlon 1998). We can thus say that something is wrong per se without appeal to a wrong done to a particular person. Even though this seems quite plausible we suggest another route to circumvent the non-identity problem which we think is closer to the CA itself and does not require a combination with contractarian thinking, which can become problematic if it refers to particular individuals in the future. It also fits better with the model suggested above with regard to formulating principles of justice that go well with the CA.  Concerning principles of justice, CA’s focus on human well-being and the special concern for the poor present in both Sen’s (2001) and Nussbaum’s (2000, 2007) work indicate the direction to take. In fact, Nussbaum (2000) prominently argues for ensuring threshold levels of basic capabilities and sees the same tendency in Sen (Nussbaum 2006). Indeed, Sen (1980) started his work on the CA by speaking of “basic capabilities” to which he refers later again (e.g. Sen 1992). This term points to both a small sample of particularly needed capabilities as well as to a threshold conception. Clearly both could agree on the principle to give priority to the poor who fall below threshold levels of capability. In his discussion of sufficientarian approaches to intergenerational justice, Meyer (2009; Meyer and Roser 2009) explains why and how the idea of thresholds circumvents the non-identity problem. Usually the notion of harm is taken in a comparative sense, i.e. comparing a person’s well-being at time tn with her well-being at tn+1. The non-identity problem ensues, if there is no earlier time tn to which to compare a person’s well-being at tn+1. This means that—when we have to decide between two policies affecting the life of a particular individual X—we have to look at the life of a person X at one time and compare it to the life of X at a later stage. We then judge whether she is better off at that later moment if we choose policy A or B.  Say that she gains more well-being, if we choose B, then we have a reason to choose B because of our comparative judgment. If, however, the choice of policies will itself affect which particular individual will life—X or Y—we cannot make this judgment, since we would compare the life of X at tn with the life of Y at tn+1. Specifying a threshold, however, defines harm in an absolute way, i.e. valid for all people regardless of their identity. If a person is in a sub-­ threshold-­state, we can say that she is ipso facto harmed, even if she was brought into existence by the action related to that state. Hence, we believe that a threshold account of the CA should be formulated and employed in intergenerational context (Gutwald et al. 2012).

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4.5   Outlook: CA, Intergenerational Justice and SD In our view, the CA is helpful in setting out the objective of SD and intergenerational justice, which is supported by (rather short) passages from Sen’s work (Rauschmayer et al. 2011). Sen (2009) advocates reformulating the Brundtland definition (as mentioned above) by substituting “needs” by “capabilities”. It has to be conceded, though, that this substitution highlights a number of problems (Leβmann and Rauschmayer 2013) that seem to be hidden in more simplistic understandings of SD (such as the one proposed by Solow 1993). Sen thus claims that the goal of SD should be defined as the protection or even the enhancement of capabilities. Sen’s view fits well with our take on the CA’s role in intergenerational justice: capabilities are defined as the metric and thus as the goal of intergenerational justice. It thus also can be interpreted as the objective of justice. Given the strong tie between intergenerational justice and the idea of SD, we also stipulate that they should be directed to the same goal. Putting the issue in the frame of theories of justice shows that the CA mainly defines a plausible metric within a theory of justice with a universal scope. Hence it aims at both intra- and intergenerational justice on the global level. However, several crucial issues remain open because the CA only forms part of a theory of justice: First, it lacks principles of justice that would guide the answer to the question whose capabilities to sustain. As argued in this paper, a threshold account may fill this lacuna. Second, a more fleshed out model of justification should be developed to address the problem how people are motivated and obligated to protect others’ capabilities. This is particularly relevant in the intergenerational realm since the CA cannot straightforwardly justify why present people should preserve capabilities of future people on the cost of having their own capabilities curtailed (however, the CA provides some reasons as Leβmann 2010 argues). Yet, it seems clear that the CA does not aim at a new ethic which would qualify as non-anthropocentric or bio-centric in the view of advocates of this understanding of SD (for example Suzuki and McConnell 2002). In general, the question remains whether the CA should be extended and modeled into a fuller account of justice or whether it needs to be supplemented by other philosophical accounts. Nussbaum and Sen often suggest that Thomas Scanlon’s contractarian approach should be used as a basis of justifying demands of social justice with regard to capabilities. Their arguments for this, however, remain brief. (cf. Nussbaum 2007 and Sen 2009). It remains to be seen whether the CA or any of its ­modifications

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are capable of handling these problems convincingly. Given the complexity of these issues, there is little hope, we believe, that the CA can cover all the questions of intergenerational justice without relying on other theories be they sufficientarian or contractarian mentioned so far. Further work needs to be done. Linking the CA and SD as sketched in the preceding section will only to a very small degree answer the enormous challenge of SD mentioned above: It mainly contributes to the discussion of SD on the normative level by discussing what to sustain. Further, the combination suggests a prioritarian principle of justice. But it refrains from proposing particular SD rules that apply these ideas to general thematic fields. Much less does the combination of CA and SD contribute to specifying rules for various contexts on the strategic level. We think, though, that this combination can help to renew and strengthen the discussion on the goals of SD changing the perspective on the means to move towards SD by focusing on the ends of SD. Further, it offers promising avenues to combine discussions on human development with its focus on intragenerational justice and SD with its emphasis on intergenerational justice.

Note 1. In the following, “sustainable development” and “sustainability” are used interchangeably.

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Konstitutive Elemente, Regeln, Indikatoren [Integrative Sustainable Development: Elements, Principles, Indicators]. Berlin: Edition Sigma. Lamont, J., & Favor, C. (2008). Distributive Justice. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition). Retrieved from http:// plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/justice-distributive/. Leach, M., Rockström, J., Raskin, P., Scoones, I., Stirling, A.  C., Smith, A., Thompson, J., Millstone, E., Ely, A., Arond, E., Folke, C., & Olsson, P. (2012). Transforming Innovation for Sustainability. Ecology and Society, 17(1), 11. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04933-170211. Leßmann, O. (2010, September 21–23). Sustainability and Rationality: Individual and Collective Responsibility in the CA. Paper Presented at the HDCA-Conference in Amman, Jordan. Leßmann, O. (2011). Sustainability as a Challenge to the Capability Approach. In F. Rauschmayer, J. Frühmann, & I. Omann (Eds.), Sustainable Development— Capabilities Needs and Well-Being (p. 43). London: Routledge. Leßmann, O., & Rauschmayer, F. (2013). Re-conceptualising Sustainable Development on the Basis of the Capability Approach: A Model and Its Difficulties. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 14(1), 95–114. Max-Neef, M., Elizalde, A., & Hopenhyan, M. (1991). Human Scale Development: Conception, Application and Further Reflections. New York: The Apex Press. Meadows, D., Randers, J., & Behrens, W. (1972). The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New  York: Universe Books. Mebratu, D. (1998). Sustainability and Sustainable Development: Historical and Conceptual Review. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 18, 493–520. L.  Meyer (2009) ‘Intergenerationelle Suffizienzgerechtigkeit’, in Goldschmidt, Nils (ed.) Generationengerechtigkeit—Ordnungsökonomische Konzepte (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck), p. 281. Meyer, L., & Roser, D. (2009). Enough for the Future. In A. Gosseries & L. Meyer (Eds.), Intergenerational Justice (p. 219). New York: Oxford University Press. Neumayer, E. (1999). Weak Versus Strong Sustainability: Exploring the Limits of Two Opposing Paradigms. Elgar: Cheltenham. Neumayer, E. (2010). Human Development and Sustainability. Human Development Research Paper, 2010/5, UNDP. Nussbaum, M. (2000). Women and Human Development. Cambridge: University Press. Nussbaum, M. (2006). Capabilities as Fundamental Entitlements: Sen and Social Justice. In A. Kaufman (Ed.), Capabilities Equality: Basic Issues and Problems (pp. 44–70). London: Routledge. Nussbaum, M. (2007). Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press (Harvard University Press).

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Nussbaum, M. (2011). Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. O’Neill, J. (2011). The Overshadowing of Needs. In F. Rauschmayer, J. Frühmann, & I.  Omann (Eds.), Sustainable Development—Capabilities Needs and Well-­ Being. London: Routledge. Ott, K., & Döring, R. (2004). Theorie und Praxis starker Nachhaltigkeit. Marburg: Metropolis. Parfit, D. (1989). Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Parfit, D. (2011). On What Matters: Volume II. Oxford: OUP. Pezzoli, K. (1997). Sustainable Development: A Transdisciplinary Overview of the Literature. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 40(5), 549–574. Polishchuk, Y., & Rauschmayer, F. (2012). Beyond “Benefits”? Looking at Ecosystem Services Through the Capability Approach. Ecological Economics, 81, 103–111. Rauschmayer, F., & Leßmann, O. (2011). Assets and Drawbacks When Using the CA for Sustainability Economics. Ecological Economics, 70(11), 1835–1836. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.06.023. Rauschmayer, F., Omann, I., & Frühmann, J. (2011). Needs, Capabilities, and Quality of Life: Refocusing Sustainable Development. In F.  Rauschmayer, J.  Frühmann, & I.  Omann (Eds.), Sustainable Development—Capabilities Needs and Well-Being. London: Routledge. Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice (orig ed.). Harvard University Press. Rawls, J. (2013). Political Liberalism: Expanded Edition. New  York: Columbia University Press. Reader, S. (Ed.). (2005). The Philosophy of Need. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 57. Cambridge: University Press. Redclift, M. (2005). Sustainable Development (1987–2005): An Oxymoron Comes of Age. Sustainable Development, 13, 212–227. Robeyns, I. (2009). Capabilities and theories of justice. In E. C. Martinetti (Ed.), Debating Global Society: Reach and Limits of the Capability Approach. Milan: Feltrinelli. Robeyns, I., & van der Veen, R. J. (2007). Sustainable Quality of Life: Conceptual Analysis for a Policy-Relevant Empirical Specification. Bilthoven and Amsterdam: Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and University of Amsterdam. Robinson, J. (2004). Squaring the Circle? Some Thoughts on the Idea of Sustainable Development. Ecological Economics, 48, 369–384. Sachs, J.  D. (2015). The Age of Sustainable Development. New  York: Columbia University Press. Scanlon, T. (1998). What We Owe to Each Other. Harvard: University Press. Schultz, J., Brand, F., Kopfmüller, J., & Ott, K. (2008). Building a ‘Theory of Sustainable Development’: Two Salient Conceptions Within the German

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Discourse. International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development, 7, 465–482. SDSN. (2016). SDG Index & Dashboards. A Global Report. Gütersloh: Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Bertelsmann Stiftung. Sen, A. (1980). Equality of What? In S. McMurrin (Ed.), Tanner Lectures on Human Values (Vol. 1). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sen, A. (1983). Goods and People. In A.  K. Sen (Ed.), Resources, Values, and Development (p. 509). Oxford: Blackwell. Sen, A. (1992). Inequality Re-examined. Oxford: Blackwell. Sen, A. (2001). Development as Freedom. Oxford: University Press. Sen, A. (2009). The Idea of Justice. Harvard: University Press. Serageldin, I., & Steer, A. (1994). Making Development Sustainable: From Concepts to Action. Washington: World Bank. Solow, R. M. (1993, September). An Almost Practical Step Toward Sustainability. Resources Policy, 162–172. Stiglitz, J., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, J.  P. (2009). Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. Retrieved from http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/documents/rapport_anglais.pdf. Streeten, P. (1981). First Things First: Meeting Basic Human Needs in Developing Countries. New York: Oxford University Press. Suzuki, D. T., & McConnell, A. (2002). The Sacred Balance: A Visual Celebration of Our Place in Nature. Greystone Books. UN. (1972). Stockholm Declaration. Retrieved from http://www.unep.org/ Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?documentid=97&articleid=1503. UN. (1993). Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Vol. I). Resolutions adopted by the Conference, New York. UN. (1997). Resolution adopted by the General Assembly. Programme for further Implementation of Agenda 21. New York. UN. (2001). Indicators of Sustainable Development: Framework and Methodologies. Background Paper No. 3. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/ csd/csd9_indi_bp3.pdf. UN. (2002a). Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/ WSSD_POI_PD/English/POIToc.htm. UN. (2002b). Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development, from our Origins to the Future. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/WSSD_POI_PD/English/POI_PD.htm. UN. (2007). Indicators of Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Methodologies. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/natlinfo/indicators/ guidelines.pdf. UN. (2008). Measuring Sustainable Development. Retrieved from http://www. oecd.org/greengrowth/41414440.pdf.

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UN. (2012). The Future We Want. Retrieved from http://www.uncsd2012.org/ thefuturewewant.html. UN. (2015). Resolution Adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015. Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, New York. Wackernagel, M., & Rees, W. (1997). Unser ökologischer Fußabdruck: Wie der Mensch Einfluss auf die Umwelt nimmt [Our Ecological Footprint]. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag. Walker, B. H., & Salt, D. (2006). Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World. Island Press. Watene, K. (2013). Nussbaum’s Capability Approach and Future Generations. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 14(1), 2–39. WCED (United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development). (1987). Our Common Future, edited. Retrieved April 03, 2010, from http:// www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm. Wiggins, D. (1987). Needs, Values, Truth: Essays in the Philosophy of Value. Oxford: Blackwell.

CHAPTER 5

Where Are Criteria of Human Significance in Climate Change Assessment?

Des Gasper and Simone Rocca

5.1   Introduction It needs to be said that, generally speaking, there is little in the way of clear awareness of problems which especially affect the excluded. (Pope Francis 2015: 34)

How far have humanistic principles penetrated ‘policy-relevant’ discussion of climate change? Are changes assessed in terms of their impacts on people, and even assessed in terms of a full range of values that people have good reason to hold? This chapter considers some major assessments of climate change to see how far such principles are present. It identifies mechanisms by which interests of vulnerable low-income people are often marginalized, even when the assessments are made by agencies supposedly accountable within the United Nations system with its commitments to universal human rights and human security (United Nations 1948, 2012). A first case considered is the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (2014a). We examine how far the language of ‘human’ and the criteria of human D. Gasper (*) • S. Rocca International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Crabtree (ed.), Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38905-5_5

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s­ ignificance are found in this foremost example of inter-governmental ‘policy-relevant’ scientific cooperation. A second major example taken is the debate on impacts on human health from climate change. It illustrates how the burden of proof in climate change politics is often placed on the side of those who warn of dangers, and how the precautionary principle becomes configured in favour of not risking disturbance to the privileged. The chapter presents a typology of ways in which vulnerable poor people are marginalized or excluded in climate change analyses, such as leaving them outside the field of vision or ignoring or inverting the precautionary principle. The later part of the chapter discusses how such marginalization and exclusion might be countered. The human development approach was advanced in order to prevent ordinary people’s lives being ignored in development analyses and planning. But its impact in climate change discussions has been slight. Does lack of political penetration reflect a lack of intellectual penetration in some respects, possibly an unbalanced interpretation of or emphasis on ‘freedom’ and an erasure of too much other ‘human’ content? Further, insofar as economic growth discourse is quasi-­ religious in character, including for example a belief in salvation by technologies yet to be invented, a bloodless version of human development discourse could be relatively ineffective in influencing or counteracting economic growth disciples. Openly religious discourses might be more effective with many audiences. We look at the 2015 Papal encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, to raise the question whether attention to the excluded requires ontological reorientation of sorts not found in all human development discourse. The chapter generates the question whether more penetration and impact have been or will be achieved by human rights and human security analyses than by a focus on capability theory—a question that is taken further in the following chapter.

5.2   The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report: Where Are the People? We start with the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5; IPCC 2014a), as perhaps the foremost recent climate change assessment. We analyse its representation of people, in the four Summary for Policy Makers documents (SPMs): one each for the three working groups (WG I, II, III; respectively on: physical science basis; impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; mitigation) and the Synthesis Report (SYR).1 Each SPM is a major statement, of 12,500 to 15,000 words.2 An SPM “provides a

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policy-­relevant but policy-neutral summary of [a] Report”, as indicated by the IPCC Principles and Procedures document.3 Since the IPCC mandate is to synthesize peer-reviewed scientific publications in order to produce policy-relevant information for decision-makers, the SPMs are the heart of the exercise. They have a special status, for they are negotiated and approved line-by-line by representatives of all governments; and they are the most that will be read by nearly all of the intended audiences or others, and even by many writers of the overviews that are all that a great part of the audiences actually do read. Fløttum et al. (2016) undertook a content analysis of the four SPMs. One part of the analysis is a comparison of vocabularies. Table 5.1 presents such a comparison (excluding terms like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘of’, and excluding tables and diagrams).4 It highlights frequently used terms that could contain a focus on human significance: ‘impact’, ‘risk’ and ‘risks’, and ‘human’. These occur most often in Working Group II’s SPM, and the comparison given in Table 5.1 is thus between the frequencies of the most common words in the text of WGII-SPM and their use (nearly always lesser, sometimes much lesser) in the other SPMs.5 5.2.1  ‘Human’ in AR5 Table 5.1 shows that the term ‘human’ occurred with modest frequency in WGII’s SPM, as its 13th most frequent content term. It occurred with only a quarter of that relative frequency in the mitigation-policy oriented WGIII’s  SPM, a frequency which was even lower than that for the physical-­science oriented WGI.6 In WGI the term ‘human’ was implicitly contrasted with ‘non-human’, as in references to ‘human influence’ on climate change. Perhaps unsurprisingly WGI had no interest in differentiating within ‘human’, to distinguish groups according to their amount of influence or degree of vulnerability. Remarkably, this remained true in WGII-SPM on impacts. It talked mainly of ‘human systems’ and did not distinguish specific types of persons (such as, to mention those most vulnerable: children, the aged, the poorest, the disabled), who experience different exposures and impacts and/or have exerted different degrees of influence on the climate compared to other groups. There is attention though to some specifics of all human lives, notably life and death themselves, including a few references to ‘human health’, including ‘loss of human lives’ (IPCC 2014b: 19).

160 150 117 103 99 93 93 57 54 42 39 38 36 34

Source: Adapted from Fløttum et al. (2016)

Climate Change High Confidence Adaptation Impacts Risks Medium Risk Systems Regions Projected Human Climate

Frequency 125 117 91 80 77 73 73 44 42 32 30 29 28 26

Per 10,000

WGII-SPM (impacts, adaptation and vulnerability)

83 65 67 124 0 0 0 47 0 1 22 20 13 20

Frequency 56 44 45 84 0 0 0 31 0 0 14 13 8 13

Per 10,000

WGI-SPM (physical science of climate change)

64 50 78 41 13 5 15 86 2 1 8 17 11 12

Frequency 44 34 53 28 8 3 10 59 1 0 5 11 7 8

Per 10,000

WGIII-SPM (mitigation)

Table 5.1  The 14 most frequent content words in AR5 WGII SPM compared to the other SPMs

144 119 111 105 86 45 53 57 21 18 36 27 24 14

Frequency

96 79 74 70 57 30 35 38 14 12 24 18 16 9

Per 10,000

SYR-SPM (synthesis)

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Classic concerns of human development and capability theory—that the same physical and commodity inputs have drastically different significance and impact for groups with different endowments and needs—thus received little attention in AR5’s SPMs.7 Lack of attention to differentiation of persons was reflected in the vocabulary employed. The Fifth Assessment Report made little or no use of terms like ‘children’, ‘our children’, ‘our grandchildren’, ‘the poor’, ‘the poorest’—terms that were prominent in for example the Human Development Report 2007/8 on climate change (see Gasper et al. 2013 for analysis of its vocabulary compared to some other reports). Other terms prominent in that Human Development Report but absent or virtually absent from AR5 include: ‘we’, ‘humanity’, ‘human rights’, ‘future generations’, ‘the international community’. A few aspects deserve particular comment. First, the IPCC’s work is explicitly intended to inform policymakers, and the SPMs are explicitly ‘Summaries for Policy Makers’. All governments and thousands of other organizations around the world have accepted declarations and conventions about human rights, including in the UN Charter under which auspices the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and in turn the IPCC operate. However, the language of human rights is absent from IPCC reports. It does not inform the framing of discussions of impacts or of policy alternatives.8 Second, children, especially small children, typically make up the bulk of those vulnerable to climate change and the associated extreme weather events and health hazards. Eighty-six percent of the estimated deaths attributed to climate change in 2000, according to a WHO report (2002: 223) were of babies and children younger than 5 years, essentially amongst poorer families in poorer countries (see also Gibbons 2014). Yet children receive no special attention in AR5, even in WGII which had a chapter on poverty and livelihoods. WGII-SPM refers to ‘human’ but through the abstracted concept of ‘human systems’, contrasted to natural systems. It hardly talks of ‘people’, and it never mentions ‘children’. Third, the reports do not differentiate between rich and poor countries. They analyse at global level or in terms of continental regions, even treating ‘Asia’, home to 60 percent of global human population, as one unit. WGII-SPM (p. 12) does remark that risks are generally greater for ‘disadvantaged people and communities’, but says this for all countries without highlighting the frequency of life-and-death issues in many poor countries. Despite offering figures on impacts on GDP, and other economic measures of climate change impact, WGII-SPM offered no figures on impacts in terms of lives, nor on health impacts more broadly.9

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Overall, a ‘human lens’ had not yet become widely acceptable or automatic in the genre of government-approved climate science represented by IPCC.  While separate attention was granted to eco-systems and to non-­ human species, almost none was given in the SPMs to the poorest and weakest human groups. The weakness of attention to specific human groups with specific needs and vulnerabilities means that the discussion of ‘risk’ that ensued was weak. Even so, we will see that ‘risk’ language still provided the main pathway within the IPCC AR5 intellectual and political universe to link climate change to its human significance and to concerns of human security. This pathway became prominent in the SYR-SPM, the most important element in the whole exercise. Within its given bounds of conceptualization, the synthesis SPM strained to convey the human significance of the climate trends identified, and arrived for example at a term which, surprisingly, was not in any of the three WG-SPMs, ‘human mortality’. Its use remained muffled: ‘There is medium confidence that the observed warming has increased heat-related human mortality and decreased cold-related human mortality in some regions.’ (p. 40). The former effect, of increased deaths due to higher temperatures, is—sadly—far greater. 5.2.2   ‘Risk’ in AR5 The reliance on risk language in the SYR-SPM reflects that, in general, the term ‘risk’ implies the presence of criteria of human significance. The term is one in everyday language and is often employed vaguely; it can be used in relation to various aspects of complex situations, but in general the valueassociation remains strong. We hardly refer to the ‘risk’ of fewer hurricanes or the ‘risk’ of more reliable rainfall. Judgement of an eventuality as a ‘risk’ typically relates to its negative impacts on humans, or, to be more precise, the impacts on those groups of humans about whom we think and are concerned. Financial risks, for example, concern the risks of loss for those who have money. Some definitions of risk are explicit that risk equals likelihood of an event times the value/significance of that outcome.10 The IPCC definition remained though rather vague: ‘the term risk is used primarily to refer to the risks of climate-change impacts’ (p. 5), where ‘impacts’ are ‘Effects on natural and human systems’ (WGIIAR5-Glossary).11 Unfortunately, whereas everyday language and policy language use ‘risk’ in a context-dependent way, according to the human values that are at stake, IPCC’s work has emerged in a natural-sciences led tradition which seeks for context-independent concepts. In recent years and in

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response to debates around the terms and judgements in the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, the IPCC adopted a standardized scale of terms for judgements of probability, derived from natural science style and usage. Using this scale, a less than 33% chance in any field now had to be called ‘unlikely’, and a likelihood of 10% ‘very unlikely’, in the Fifth Assessment Report. This is problematic for human issues, where the appropriate use of such terms will typically depend partly on the contents of the discussion and the values that are at stake. As Fløttum et al. (2016) point out, while in the IPCC scale a 30% chance of human deaths becomes called ‘unlikely’, in most social contexts (though not the context of the eventual mortality that awaits us all) this would be called ‘extremely high risk’. Table 5.2 shows that in the Summaries for Policymakers the term ‘risk’ was strongly present for WGII, totally absent for WGI on climate (except in one reference to the title of a report), and not much used for WGIII on mitigation, where the frequency was about a tenth of that in WGII. However, it was relatively strongly present for the Synthesis Report. A similar pattern applied for uses of ‘impact’. Further, WGII-SPM used ‘risk’ often with intensified emphasis, as in 31 uses of the phrase ‘key risk’¸ many of them in its headlines; and the SYR-SPM similarly highlighted risk concerns via prominent use of the concept ‘Reasons for Concern’ that refers to the most important risks. The contrast between the two pairs of reports is thus even greater than Table 5.2 suggests. We can say thus that the SYR-SPM adopted the language of risk found in WGII, even though such language was virtually absent in the other working groups, those dominated by climate scientists, engineers and economists. However, even in WGII-SPM, where estimates of impacts and ‘risk levels’ are presented at length (e.g., in Table 5.2 SPM.A.1 and Assessment Box SPM.2), the values and people that are affected are not specified in detail. As we saw, there is no serious differentiation according to classes, gender, and ages of those at risk. Contrasting with this, there is spatial differentiation, though only between enormous multi-national Table 5.2  Frequency of risk (in all forms: singular, plural, capitalized or not) in the four SPMs

Risk

WGI-SPM

WGII-SPM

WGIII-SPM

SYR-SPM

1

224

18

80

Source: Adapted from Fløttum et al. (2016)

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geographical regions (e.g., in Assessment Box SPM.2 and many tables) that are too large for these indications to distinguish the actual localities most at risk. Given that the IPCC assessment was based on critical summary of the available published scientific literatures, a huge task seems to remain to bring a human focus into analyses of the implications of climate change. The World Social Science Report 2013 came to the same conclusion (ISSC/UNESCO 2013). Next, we examine further major examples of downgrading the interests of poorer people in climate analyses, including in estimation of impacts on their health. This leads to a classification of ways in which downgrading occurs, that indicates the challenges that a human-centred approach must try to overcome. The chapter will ask then how far human development thinking, in any of its forms in ‘the human discourses’ (Gasper 2007a), can have an impact on this disturbing pattern of marginalization, and where not why not.

5.3   Precaution for Whom? Structuring of Analysis According to Whose Interests? 5.3.1  Ignoring the Precautionary Principle: Downgrading Extreme Cases Two surprising features of the 2014 IPCC Assessment Report were the relatively low use made of the IPCC’s own 2012 Report on Extreme Events, and the limited discussion of low-probability-but-very-high-­ damage shifts. The former issue deals with ‘outlier’ events that we know do happen, and that happen with increasing frequency: extremes of temperature, wind and precipitation, as in heat-waves, hurricanes and droughts. However, this issue was dealt with somewhat better in the SYR than by the three working groups; its terms of reference had explicitly directed it to review also the Extreme Events report. The latter issue concerns long-run ‘outlier’ possibilities of huge importance that can happen, though we do not know when and/or how fast they will, including whether they will be counteracted by other forces. The possibilities include, for example, destabilization of the West Antarctica ice-cap, and melting of the permafrost that will release methane and ­substantially accelerate global warming. Yet the concept of ‘tipping-point’ was almost totally absent from all of AR5’s SPMs; despite four uses in

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WGII’s SPM it did not survive through to the SYR-SPM.12 Romm (2015) notes how in the absence of a confident assessment of: how quickly the ice sheets can melt and contribute to sea level rise [the IPCC physical sciences group] assume it is very little and plead ignorance: “The basis for higher projections of global mean sea level rise in the 21st century has been considered and it has been concluded that there is currently insufficient evidence to evaluate the probability of specific levels above the assessed likely range.” (SPM-WGI, p. 24; cited in Romm 2015)

However, inability to confidently make a quantitative assessment does not justify ignoring a phenomenon or assuming a zero figure. The above syndrome—to fail to take precaution against major possible threats that are not precisely quantified risks—is perhaps relatively well-­known. Less widely recognized is the widespread pattern of not ignoring the precautionary principle but in effect inverting its use, so as to take precautions not to protect the weak but to avoid disturbing the already privileged. 5.3.2  Inverting the Precautionary Principle: 1 – Estimating Health and Mortality Impacts It has often been suggested that the harm caused by one person’s contribution to climate change is negligible. Nolt (2011) tried to test this conventional assumption. He concluded that the assumption was false for average consumers in rich countries. Several papers in a special section of the journal Ethics, Policy and Environment (volume 14, no. 1) reviewed his arguments, and Nolt in turn responded (2013). Rocca and Gasper (2015), building from Rocca (2014), attempted to understand the practices in this discussion, to see whose interests guided the choices made. Similarly to Nolt, we focused on health damage alone, since it forms a central element of harm to human rights and because exact figures had been estimated in WHO studies of 2002 and 2014, including in terms of lost DALYs (Disability Adjusted Life Years). This harm to health is heavily concentrated amongst small children living in less developed countries (WHO 2002). Recognizing that no confident precise prediction can be made, given the limits to climate science and to epidemiological ­understanding (see e.g. McMichael et al. 2004), we consciously presented a ‘conservative’ estimate. In doing so we came to interrogate the meaning of ‘conservative’.

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Using data about individuals’ emissions, global cumulative carbon emissions, and the estimated total harm to health, one can estimate the harm produced by an individual. Several parameters in the estimation are affected by significant uncertainty so we made three estimates: ‘conservative’, middle and high. In all of them we also assumed ‘conservatively’ (i.e. minimally) that the impact of climate change on human health is only proportional to the global mean temperature increment. Global temperature increment has in turn been found to be proportional to the cumulative amount of CO2 emissions (Matthews et al. 2009).13 The World Health Organization (WHO 2002) estimated the health impact at that time as follows: including only the better-studied climate and health causal relationships, 150 000 deaths and 5.5 million lost DALYS in the year 2000 could be attributed to climate change. The ratio between the health harm produced and human CO2 emissions could then be estimated, again ‘conservatively’, by dividing that global impact of climate change on health in the year 2000 by the cumulative anthropogenic carbon emissions up to the year 2000. This harm rate or ratio is expressed in DALYs/year, for the same harm is reproduced for as long as the emitted amount of CO2 remains in the atmosphere. The average time a molecule of CO2 remains in the atmosphere (see e.g. Inman 2008; Archer and Brovkin 2008) was assumed to be 200 years in the ‘conservative’ estimation. To obtain the absolute amount of harm produced by 1 ton of CO2 we multiplied the harm rate by the CO2 atmospheric lifetime. Our conservative estimate was then that to every ton of CO2 emitted there corresponded a loss of healthy life equivalent to 10 hours. Multiplying this by the amount of CO2 that a person emits during his/her life we obtained the harm attributable to the person. For example an average US resident caused, conservatively estimated, the loss of about 1.9 DALYs, a top 1% income-earning US resident the loss of 27 DALYs, an average Dutch person the loss of about 1.2 DALYs, and an average Ethiopian the loss of about 0.008 DALY at then current rates of emission and year 2000 rates of impact (Rocca and Gasper 2015). These estimates were based on ‘conservative’ parameters, i.e. assumptions that very likely underestimated the global health harm per year, the CO2 atmospheric lifetime, and hence the total harm. Considering probably more realistic parameters, a plausible middle estimate was that an ­average US citizen caused the loss of 25 DALYs, and in a possible high estimate he/she could cause the loss of 130 DALYs if no counteracting measures were taken.

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We highlighted the most ‘conservative’ estimate, because it showed the harm induced in the least bad case, i.e. with values of the parameters that minimized the estimated harm. This let us assess whether even in this least bad case the health damage was ethically substantial. The harmful impact of individual actions (by an average US resident)—loss of at least 1.9 years of healthy life—in even that least bad case was manifestly ethically relevant, including because the loss is suffered overwhelmingly by far poorer people than those who cause it. In engineering design in rich countries, being conservative means including high safety margins, covering also for some very low probability cases. The life-risks for the citizens of the high-income country are taken seriously by the engineers and those who commission or monitor them. In climate change analyses, in contrast, the main risks arising from high-­ income-­ citizens’ consumption-and-production patterns fall on low-­ income people far away in space and time, and being ‘conservative’ has instead typically meant making low estimates of dangerous effects and associated risks, excluding what are considered low-probability high-risk cases, and excluding those aspects for which precise confident quantification is not yet possible. Priority is given to avoiding the ‘risk’ of not being precise in estimates, above the risk of major life damage to weaker groups. Many of the impacts with biggest human significance are the least precisely predictable, such as when will climate change contribute to physical tipping points or when will it trigger major conflict. These impacts have been largely excluded from IPCC estimates, in order to present only the estimated effects about which there is high consensus and confidence. This procedure is justifiable for a particular purpose, but for reasons which implicitly reflect a prioritization of the interests of already rich groups whose past and ongoing greenhouse gas emissions endanger the basic needs fulfilment of far poorer groups. The particular purpose is when we wish to test whether even when using the most restricted and minimalist set of assumptions the harmful effects that can be identified as consequences of human activity are of a magnitude and ethical importance that demand changing the patterns of activity that generate them. If the answer is yes, then major political and policy implications arise, regardless of the areas of legitimate disagreement possible as to precisely how much greater the harmful effects are likely to really be. The legitimate purpose of using restricted, so-called ‘conservative’ assumptions is to avoid the danger of postponement of political agreements on action until there is resolution of those disagreements through precise agreed estimates, an outcome that may require decades. But the mini-

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malist estimates made for this purpose, such as arguably seen in some IPCC work, have unfortunately been liable to then become interpreted in ruling circles and in policy debates as being the maximalist claims of climate-change alarmists. Correspondingly, their minimalist proposed policy implications become viewed as ambitious maxima that political idealists hope for and are treated as being basically rhetorical commitments that canny political so-called realists may honour in words but never expect to fully actualize in practice. In practice even the minimalist targets (like the supposedly still-just-about safe 2°C level of global warming) become traded away for the sake of the ‘realist’ politicians’ shorter-term goals. Table 5.3 reviews various of the restrictive, minimalist, assumptions made in these attempts to estimate the damage caused by an individual affluent consumer’s consumption pattern, notably the impacts on the health of other people. The sequence in the table reflects the stages in estimation of health impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. Such an exercise of ‘soft-pedalled’ estimation is, to underline, legitimate if done in order to check whether there are demonstrable ethical implications from even such scenarios. However, the ‘conservative’ approach seen in such work does not match the precautionary principle as normally understood, which means to take due care not to endanger people’s lives and health, paying attention to eventualities that appear possible, especially given natural variation and recognizing our imperfect understanding. Instead, first, in these ‘conservative’ estimates care is taken to wherever possible avoid estimates that some powerful group might query and mobilize to block, typically because the estimates would imply obligations for remedy. Second, obligations to act become specified only where there is certainty or near-­certainty about unacceptable climate change-related impacts. In the absence of near-certainty, more evidence is demanded, to avoid the ‘risk’ that emissions might be unnecessarily reduced, while the risk continues to be tolerated of serious damage to the lives of vulnerable people who are remote in space, time or political centrality. In other words, precaution is taken to not disturb high-volume GHG emitters. 5.3.3  Inverting the Precautionary Principle: 2 – Systematic ‘Conservatism’ in Forecasting A pattern of stage-by-stage ‘conservatism’ throughout the process of projecting futures and estimating impacts is seen more broadly in mainstream climate change analyses. The cumulative impact of such conservatism is

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Table 5.3  The layers of minimalist assumptions in ‘no-dispute’ estimates of damage caused via climate change by an individual’s consumption (based on Rocca and Gasper 2015) Volume of greenhouse Frequently excluded are GHG emissions attributable to gas (GHG) emissions rich-country purchasers but generated by their foreign suppliers. These emissions are also excluded in international accounting of the emissions for which a country is responsible (Klein 2015a). Persistence of CO2 in How long GHGs (especially the predominant and persistent the atmosphere carbon dioxide) will remain in the atmosphere and have a warming effect is a matter of uncertainty and controversy. Rocca and Gasper (2015) adopt a ‘conservative’ estimate of 200 years, to keep on board conservative commentators such as Odenbaugh (2011). Nolt (2011, 2013) adopts a more likely period of 1000 years, drawing on Inman (2008) and other sources. Such sources give reasons that could also justify taking a period longer than 1000 years, if we apply the precautionary principle from the side of those liable to suffer the main damage. Nolt notes in addition that the duration of climate disruption, which is the real issue, is much longer than just the period of persistence of CO2. Shape of the Nolt and Rocca & Gasper assume that harm is proportional to [emissions→harm] emissions. In reality we expect disproportionately increasing function – I: linearity? harm as various ecological and social thresholds are crossed, taking us beyond the bounds to which the existing systems are well-adapted. But in the absence of a widely accepted or persuasive specification of what that disproportionate impact might be, we adopt an assumption that is the one least open to objection by politically powerful audiences disinclined to change their life-styles. Shape of the Rocca and Gasper (2015) link the health harm caused by climate [emissions→harm] change in the year 2000 to the cumulative carbon emissions up function – II: duration to that time. They note however that this could underestimate of harm the attributable harm because those emissions continue to induce rising global mean temperature, and associated health harm, for decades beyond 2000 (Allen et al. 2009). Shape of the Much of the harm induced by climate change will come through [emissions→harm] more frequent and more intense extreme weather events— function – III: extremes of temperature and rainfall (high or low)—not only exclusion of extreme through increase in mean temperatures. These extremes bring climate events disproportionate harm. However, we lack well-established quantified models to specify that harm, and as a result, ‘The health impacts of extreme climate events are not included in [even the 2014 WHO] assessment’ (WHO 2014: 14). (continued)

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Table 5.3  (continued) Exclusion of many non-health pathways and effects, as not subject to good precise estimates

The WHO 2014 projection excluded ‘the effects of economic damage, major heatwave events, river flooding and water scarcity [; and] …the impacts of climate change on human security, for example through increases in migration’ (pp. 1–2), because no established quantitative models exist. Drawing on such sources, Rocca and Gasper (2015) estimated only the harm to human bodily health and omitted non-health damage such as from coastal flooding, impacts on water and food supply, displacement and conflict, loss of properties, and other economic, societal, cultural, and psychological harms, or harm to non-humans. Exclusion of lesser-­ Overlapping with but extending the previous point: the World studied health effects, Health Organization (WHO 2002) included only health impacts for which no agreed for which a quantitative model was available. McMichael et al. numerical estimation is (2004) explained that this included the impacts of increased available thermal extremes, malaria, diarrhoea and crop failure, plus deaths and injuries from floods; but excluded health impacts from other infectious diseases (e.g., chikungunya), agricultural pests and pathogens, air-pollutants, spores and pollens, salination, changed water availability, conflict, etc. and the longer-term effects of the destruction caused by weather disasters. They warned: ‘It is likely that these health consequences will be larger than those estimated in this chapter’ (p. 1609; emphasis added). The WHO 2014 update study similarly considered ‘only a subset of the expected health effects’ (p. 15): only mortality not morbidity, and only deaths due to some diseases and some causal paths. For example: ‘Climate change may increase the burden of mortality from coastal flooding, but because these impacts are highly uncertain they are not included’ (p. 10). Multiple optimistic Even for the categories of effect that were included, the WHO assumptions, to (2002) estimates were ‘conservative’, i.e. optimistic. Patz et al. pre-empt criticisms (2005: 313) commented on assumptions such as that socio-­ from ‘conservatives’, economic conditions will compensate for the spread of i.e. climate change vector-borne diseases to temperate regions. Similarly, the WHO minimizers or deniers. (2014) study assumed that no crises will arise: it used ‘the optimistic assumption that there will be no major discontinuities in the trajectory of socioeconomic development until at least the middle of the twenty-first century’ (p. 5), i.e. the period for which it makes estimates, and no tipping-points in ‘climatic, social or ecological conditions’ (p. 2). Economic development, state capacity, inter-state peace and appropriate preventive adaptation are all assumed to continue advancing—because there are no agreed quantitative models of crisis-generation, crisis-­ probability and crisis-impact. Yet we live in a world full of crises (Gasper 2018).

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not merely additive; it can sometimes exponentially diminish the estimates made (cf. Gasper 1987). This stage-by-stage conservatism has been repeatedly remarked on for much of the work of IPCC, where pressure from some of the watching governments plus the career ambitions of some leading scientist-managers exert a ‘conservative’ influence. IPCC conclusions gravitate towards the lowest common denominator amongst participating climate scientists, which then becomes adopted in much political discourse as being the highest conceivable estimate. Across two decades and thousands of pages of reports, the world’s most authoritative voice on climate science [the IPCC] has consistently understated the rate and intensity of climate change and the danger those impacts represent, say a growing number of studies on the topic …. A comparison of past IPCC predictions against 22 years of weather data and the latest climate science find that the IPCC has consistently underplayed the intensity of global warming in each of its four major reports released since 1990. (Scherer 2012)

A classic and pivotal example occurred at the climate congress leading up to the 2009 Conference of the Parties, the governments of the world, COP-15 in Copenhagen.14 The aim of the session was to update information and inform the leading national negotiators, including the then Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Prominent climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute noted that 1.5°C appeared to be the safe limit for temperature rise (referring for example to the work of James Hansen), while acknowledging the scientific uncertainty regarding probabilities. Rasmussen responded that a politician needed clear-cut advice; if told that the safe limit is 1.5 degrees he would have to deal with that, but if told it could be 1.5 degrees or could be 2 degrees, he would choose for 2. The reticence and epistemic caution (as opposed to existential caution) of the scientists led them to emphasise the continuing uncertainty and not to press for 1.5 degrees. After years of confronting well-funded climate-scepticism they felt grateful to support the long-struggled for 2 degrees political compromise, in the blithe hope that it would then be taken seriously.15 Only by the time of the 2015 Paris COP, after several more wasted years, did the more realistic and better ethically informed 1.5 degrees figure attain some degree of political acknowledgement.

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The Extreme Events report of 2012, prepared later for IPCC, was an exception to this conservatism, while the relative neglect of that report in the 2014 general Assessment Report was a reconfirmation. Even the Extreme Events report was itself relatively cautious, and ‘NASA climatologist James Hansen co-authored an analysis of recent extreme weather across the globe [that] arrived at a strikingly different conclusion from [the] IPCC special assessment on the topic released just months earlier’ (Scherer 2012, referring to Hansen et al. 2012). Later Hansen and colleagues published a study that in effect re-inverted the use of the precautionary principle, to no longer minimize estimates all the way down the line but instead give some priority to the risks to vulnerable people’s basic rights rather than to the interests of the already privileged (Hansen et al. 2015). This use of the precautionary principle in the way that it was intended attracted intense controversy, so entrenched is the perspective of prioritizing the interests of the rich. 5.3.4  Six Varieties of Exclusion and Marginalization First, in our examples of estimating climate change impacts on persons, especially health impacts, several of the judgements that we highlighted arose simply through directly making ‘conservative’ estimates—as about the volume of emissions attributable to rich country consumers and about the length of time that CO2 will remain in the atmosphere, and numerous other optimistic assumptions made en route—in order to avoid criticisms from financially and politically powerful devotees of fossil-fuelled economic growth. In the same vein, the [emissions→harm] function was assumed to be linear even though we know that this is an underestimation. Second, some judgements were not cases of seeing certain issues yet giving them little weight, but instead of removing or excluding certain groups of people from the field of vision altogether, through a rule about the required type of data; for example the exclusion of lesser-studied health effects, which typically concern the diseases of the poor, on grounds that no agreed numerical estimation was available; and by the insistence on excluding many non-health effects and some types of extreme climate event, as supposedly not yet enjoying sufficiently good precise estimates (WHO 2002, 2014). Thirdly, in a sister to the second set, the conservative judgements derive from adopting methods or techniques that themselves perform the exclusion, leaving certain issues and certain groups out of consideration. Henry

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Shue’s (2006) principle applies here, that the key decisions in policy analysis are made before we begin to apply techniques; they are the choices of the techniques themselves. Choices of ‘framing’ are built-in to the techniques, about what things to look at and with what weights/values (e.g., monetized values or not), and (implicitly) what to leave out (e.g., people with little or no money). Aggregative monetized evaluations (as emphasized in the Stern Review 2007; the World Development Report 2010) give less weight to effects on poor people, allow gains for the rich to outweigh losses for the poor (now, and for poor people in the future), and underplay non-monetized effects such as political instability. Shue’s own example concerns the business technique of discounting the future, as applied to climate policy, that downgrades the interests of future generations and employs the tacit assumption that any type of future cost (e.g., lost lives) can legitimately be discounted and traded-off against other gains. His proposed alternative is to reject any policy option that causes deaths and to force ourselves to find or create other options (Shue 2006: 712). Fourth, many exclusions arise through a sectoralized perspective that seeks to separately estimate impacts within sectors, based on models that assume closed sectors, and that underplays how insecurity in people’s lives is produced by the local intersections of multiple forces that cross sectoral, disciplinary and national boundaries. The Stern Review for example looked separately at economic costs of climate change per sector, in both rich countries and poor countries. This underemphasises the interactions between sectors, such as the impacts of political instability, and the cross-­ over impacts on rich countries of instability in poor countries. The Vatican encyclical Laudato Si’ warns that the specialization of thought that is associated with economic development ‘leads to a loss of appreciation for the whole, for the relationships between things, and for the broader horizon, which then become [considered] irrelevant’; problems ‘regarding the environment and the poor…cannot [i.e. should not] be dealt with from a single perspective or from a single set of interests.’ (Pope Francis 2015: 83). Not least, we should look holistically at the impacts in poor people’s lives—for example the impacts on African farming families in semi-arid areas—arising from weather variations in a year, weather changes over the years, and ‘tail-end’ extreme events. ‘Asking for whom climate change is dangerous, why, and when is…the first key [new] task of development ethics’ (St.Clair 2014: 287). An answer to St.Clair’s questions is: especially dangerous for babies, in low-income families, in the tropics. We need to consider: how far does the human development literature on climate change discuss such groups? And does it counteract the exclusions?

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Fifth, we noted non-application of the precautionary principle to vulnerable people far away, and application instead of the principle to protect the interests of privileged high-income consumers. While connected to the above patterns of exclusion—those involving political caution, quantification, monetization, sectoralism, and so on—these biases derive from egotistical self-preoccupation, sometimes tacit but sometimes explicit and buttressed by quasi-Darwinist philosophy. Sixth, somewhat different is the impersonal gaze seen in the IPCC Assessment Report, in which for example children and human deaths are hardly mentioned. Fortunately, growing out of Working Group II and the special IPCC report on extreme events, there is also an incipient concern with risks for vulnerable people, even though it needed better articulation. We return to this later. These various exclusions, not least the fourth through sixth, can be seen as reflecting perceptual imbalances, to counteract which requires ontological reorientation. Let us consider next, for sake of sharp contrast, the reorientation called for by Pope Francis and his co-writers, in Laudato Si’. We will then ask how adequate are the ontological perspectives present in human development theory. Ideas from human rights and human security analysis could be more helpful than an overwhelming stress on individual human freedom and a downgrading of concepts of need.

5.4   Possible Routes to Counteract Exclusion 5.4.1  Ontological Reorientation in a Religious Discourse: Laudato Si’ Pope Benedict asked us to recognize that the natural environment has been gravely damaged by our irresponsible behaviour. The social environment has also suffered damage. Both are ultimately due to the same evil: the notion that there are no indisputable truths to guide our lives, and hence human freedom is limitless. We have forgotten that “man is not only a freedom which he creates for himself. Man does not create himself. He is spirit and will, but also nature.” … We should “[move] gradually away from what I want to what God’s world needs”.16 (Pope Francis 2015: 6–7, 9)

While some religious discourse is escapist or chauvinist, some of it profoundly addresses issues of ultimate grounding (Klein Goldewijk 2007). Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical on the environment and human life—Lau-

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dato Si’ (Praise be to you): On Care For Our Common Home—argued ‘how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace’ (p. 10). Fittingly, given its topic and title, it was not addressed only to believing Catholics or Christians; most was addressed to every deist, and much of it addressed everyone. The argumentation contains a series of levels: first, endorsement of a focus on the content of human lives and welfare, including not only one’s own; second, an ontology of interconnectedness that says humans are not humans if viewed outside of their relationships to each other, to the biosphere, to the physical environment, to past and future, leading both to arguments about what then is their prudential self-interest and to reconsideration of the contents of ‘self’ and ‘interest’; and third, a critique of the paradigm of capitalist consumerism that instead: leads people to believe that they are free as long as they have the supposed freedom to consume. But those really free are the minority who wield economic and financial power. Amid this confusion, postmodern humanity has not yet achieved a new self-awareness capable of offering guidance and direction, and this lack of identity is a source of anxiety. We have too many means and only a few insubstantial ends. (Pope Francis 2015: 150)

First, the encyclical endorsed the moral centrality of the quality of people’s lives rather than economic growth or only declared (negative) freedom. ‘To claim economic freedom while real conditions bar many people from actual access to it, and while possibilities for employment continue to shrink, is to practise a doublespeak which brings politics into disrepute’ (p. 96). It cited with approval Principle 1 of the Rio-1992 treaty: ‘human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development’ (p. 123). It made explicit that ‘people’ includes ‘the poorest of our brothers and sisters’, who deserve priority attention not exclusion (p.  117), and that ‘human beings’ are not a mere myriad of commodity-consumers but are inherently intensely interdependent social members whose co-existence depends on respect for a notion of the common good (p.  116). ‘The notion of the common good also extends to future generations’, wrote Pope Francis, citing the Portuguese bishops: “The environment is part of a logic of receptivity. It is on loan to each generation, which must then hand it on to the next”. (p. 118). Our debt for what we have inherited implies our duty to preserve and pass it on. In contrast to this, a homo economicus respects obligations only to those who can pay him back. If the

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preceding generations had shared this deficient logic then contemporary practitioners of the ideology might never have existed. The encyclical was clear that in such a culture calls simply to respect the environment will have little impact—for example little impact on the fossil-fuel corporations described by Naomi Klein (2015), who drive forward to extract and burn as much carbon as possible regardless of IPCC findings or any ‘carbon-­ budget’—and that we consequently must address fundamental issues of human identity, perception and motivation. The second level of discussion is to provide a bigger picture of being human: a ‘human ecology’ marked by pervasive interconnection and mutuality, that takes us beyond the exclusively human. This includes ‘an awareness of our common origin, of our mutual belonging, and of a future to be shared with everyone’ (p.  149), a notion of the ‘human family’ (p. 21) and indeed more. For it further involves an awareness of the natural environment as ‘our common home’ and ‘the conviction that everything in the world is connected’ (p. 14). This enjoins prudence, but more: ‘Because all creatures are connected, each must be cherished with love and respect’ (p.  30). Sensitivity to the poor and to future generations, and sensitivity to non-human life and to the natural environment, are less likely and less strong in each other’s absence; for each is related to an awareness of not just interconnection but of actual shared existence, shared past and shared future. The encyclical hints at an instrumental argument for belief in God—meaning the entirety of existence, that which is beyond people and beyond their control and full understanding—as a way to keep men from thinking they are God and from destroying their home (p. 55). In the absence of acceptance of an integrative ontology, ‘things are now reaching a breaking point, due to the rapid pace of change and degradation; these are evident in large-scale natural disasters as well as social and even financial crises, for the world’s problems cannot be analyzed or explained in isolation’ (p.  44). Using terms reminiscent of Ulrich Beck and Zygmunt Bauman, the encyclical warned how ‘the fragmentation of knowledge and the isolation of bits of information can actually become a form of ignorance’ (p. 104). One can distinguish two stages in this second level: the ecological perspective of interconnectedness, which enjoins humans not to ruin their habitat; and, moving beyond purely prudential arguments, the extension of respect to that habitat and our co-residents, and the associated rethinking of human identity. The encyclical operated from the outset also on the second stage: ‘we ourselves are dust of the earth’ (p. 3), other species have

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intrinsic worth (pp. 26–27), ‘We are part of nature’ (p. 104), and ‘God himself became man and gave himself as food for his creatures’ (p. 171). It insists on a language of caring in regard to the environment, and not merely of stewardship, for the same reasons as we apply in regard to children and dependents in a human family.17 For ‘if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs’ and desires (p. 11). And, sadly, this is what presently exists.18 The third level of discussion is a diagnosis and critique of this contemporary world that lacks fraternity. It includes far blunter criticism of consumerism and market capitalism than is found in most literature on ‘the capability approach and the environment’. For example: ‘the New Zealand bishops asked [in 2006] what the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” means when “twenty percent of the world’s population consumes resources at a rate that robs the poor nations and future generations of what they need to survive”’ (p. 71). This bluntness derived directly from the encyclical’s philosophical anthropology described above, its picture of human living in the world. Compared to most climate scientists, it was unafraid to criticize ‘The culture of consumerism, which prioritizes short-term gain and private interest’ (pp. 135–136), or to reject the ethical adequacy of value as measured in the market. Consumerism (’the obsession with consumption’, p. 162) and an economic system that is committed to permanent expansion and that dominates the political system are the roots of environmental crisis and much social dysfunction; the environmental degradation comes in large part out of ‘human and social degradation’ (p. 33). Market-dominated society creates existential emptiness that sustains consumerism and contributes to ‘the abandonment of the most vulnerable, and attacks on nature’ (p. 48). The resulting ‘risk society’ reinforces selfishness, frenetic consumerism, and psychic and societal imbalance (see e.g. p. 164). The final chapter was consequently entitled ‘Ecological Education and Spirituality’. Existing environmental education is mostly too timid and narrowly technical; it should also be ethical, experiential and aesthetic. Education must add awareness that ‘by itself the market cannot guarantee integral human development and social inclusion’ (p. 82), and it should contribute to attitudes of ‘serene attentiveness’ (p.  165), of ‘gratitude’ (p. 160) for living in a (potentially) bountiful world, and of understanding that often ‘less is more’, to support liberation from the maya (deceptive illusions) of consumerism.

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Similar themes are found in the Latin American literature of buen vivir. Compared to Laudato Si’ this is more emphatically and consistently bio-centric and ethically relational. There is no separation between human life and the environment, and human lives cannot be separated from each other. Harming the environment is harming one’s own life, and failing to enable others to live in dignity is preventing oneself from living in dignity. (Deneulin 2012: 9)

In contrast to in Sen’s capability approach as generally interpreted, in buen vivir thinking, first: ‘The quality of relations between individuals, whether economic, social and political’ is as important as the outcomes for individuals; second, ‘humans are not above the environment, they are a constitutive part of it’ (Deneulin 2012: 15); third, nature has agency.19 With humans conceived in this way, as not merely existing in social and physical environments but as inter-being with them, comes a constitutive concern with the quality of these environments: they are home not merely hotel. Hence, fourth, ‘With its focus on structural change [of social environments that are severely negatively restrictive], buen vivir policy [includes] much more than human development policy with its concern with outcomes, with how people are doing’ (p. 8). Overall: unlike the liberal vision of freedom as the expression of autonomous preferences, they hold that humans are truly free only when they engage in common life, and seek together ways of relating to each other and the environment so that each person can live well in harmony with others …. (Deneulin 2012: 16)

We have given more attention here to Laudato Si’ than to buen vivir thinking, for it seems closer to human development theory in its philosophical presuppositions and language and therefore a more likely source of learning and influence.20 However, notwithstanding extensive non-­ sectarian content, no religious discourse will offer a fully consensual basis, and secular discourses are required too. 5.4.2  Human Development: Is ‘Reasoned Freedom’ a Sufficient Message About Being Human? Laudato Si’ and buen vivir philosophy may provide for some audiences a significant counterweight to the ways whereby vulnerable people are marginalized or excluded in climate change analyses: the super-human gaze

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that ignores people, the sectoralist approaches that do not view the intersections of multiple factors in people’s lives, the insistence on exact data that leads to ignoring people in poor countries, the focus on money magnitudes that leads to downgrading the poor, the adoption of business philosophies that discount future generations and balance rich people’s gains against poor people’s losses, and the short-termist political prudence and precaution that are preoccupied with the interests of the rich. But Laudato Si’, buen vivir, eco-feminism, deep ecology and sister systems of thought seem unlikely to become consensual global formulations to help mobilize and guide the type of planetary reorientation that appears essential within one generation (if we are optimistic on the time scale) according to climate scientists. Various  branches of ‘the human discourses’—human needs, human rights, human development, human security—have served as secular intellectual umbrellas, often via the United Nations system, for comparable tasks during the past century, and have potential to help in regard to response to climate change. Unfortunately, these discourses sometimes have themselves become competing intellectual ‘churches’ (see e.g.: Alston and Robinson 2005; Birdsall 2014; Howard-Hassmann 2012). We conclude this chapter with a brief indication of their possible contributions, limits and complementarities. The following chapter explores this in much more depth. ‘Human development’ is understood in different ways: as an umbrella term for the human discourses (e.g., Gasper 2007b, 2008) or as a particular human discourse centred on the capability or capabilities approach. Sen has sought with his capability approach a basis for welfare theory that is superior to utilitarianism and other common criteria and that can attract wide support since it requires only a limited set of intellectual commitments. For other purposes though than disputing with utilitarianism, those commitments appear too minimal to adequately reflect central features of human living, conclude various authors. Drawing especially on the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, Severine Deneulin (2006) summarized her proposed ‘necessary thickening’ of Sen’s picture of human living as follows. ‘Thickening Sen’s freedom proceduralism with certain moral [criteria in] decision-making may make the enhancement of human well-­ being less vulnerable’ (p.  14), compared to leaving everything to supposedly democratic debate which occurs in reality within historically built social systems of inequality and privilege. More fully expressed, the proposal is for:

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Thickening Sen’s capability approach with a vision of the good life, with socio-historical narratives, and with moral principles, constraining free human action by linking it “to the aim of the good life, with and for others and in just institutions” [Ricoeur’s formulation] … A freedom-centred vision of development would eschew human responsibility if its account of freedom did not fully assume what it is, a human freedom which exercises itself within the fallible, historical and communal condition of human life. (Deneulin 2006: [16])

For contributing to genuine sustainability the ‘necessary thickening’ must go further. It will include, for example, attention to children and future generations, to the non-substitutability of ‘natural capital’ (the earth’s regenerative systems) by other forms of capital, and to the central importance of principles about sufficiency not only expansion, and about responsibilities and not only freedoms. Such thickening could allow a necessary recognition—weak or missing for example in the Human Development Report 2011 on sustainability, or the Human Development Report 1998 on consumption—that present day high-income countries are in many ways mal-developed rather than highly developed (St.Clair 2014: 288). If one takes seriously the Rio-1992 principles of sustainable human development and examines the data, then none of these countries’ present model of development is sustainable (Mignaqui 2014). Whereas a capability-and-freedom approach is helpful in for example social deliberation about public investments or education, it is less addressed to the issues we have highlighted in regard to climate change: harm to the basic interests (such as health) of vulnerable poor people, especially children, that is caused by consumption by the relatively rich and is ignored in current systems of societal accounting. For these issues we require other elements of the human discourses: the focus on harm, entitlements and responsibilities seen in human rights theory and the focus on interconnection, risk and prevention seen in human security analysis. 5.4.3   Human Rights and Human Security We are rendered responsible by the fragile. (Ricoeur 1996: 16; cited by Deneulin 2006: 14) For Ricoeur, rights are instruments which ensure the mutual accountability of people’s actions. Through the ascription of rights, the capabilities of people are mutually recognised. (Deneulin et al. 2006: 8)

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The most obvious vehicle for humanistic concern in the areas that we have looked at is the language and machinery of human rights, for human rights are values which the governments of peoples around the world have repeatedly officially endorsed during the past seventy years and for which institutional channels and instruments now exist to some important degree. Human rights analysis emphasizes recognition of others, not only assertion of self. It acknowledges the ‘fallibility of the exercise of human freedom’ (Deneulin et al. 2006: 9), our liability to inflict illegitimate harm on others; and it stresses appropriate limitations on freedom, corresponding to respect for others’ rights. Perceptions of rights emerge from awareness of wrongs; they start from reactions to felt injustice (Dershowitz 2004). Human rights language captures the moral weight of damage to other’s basic capabilities, and the global reach of the principle of responsibility for effects of one’s actions. It is globally understandable and a workable basis for the necessary cross-border consideration and cooperation. Human rights language, values and spirit are essential but not sufficient (Gasper 2007a). The over-assertiveness of traditional formulations (using language like ‘indivisible’, ‘inviolable’, etc.) creates problems when rights clash, as inevitably happens. The resolution of such clashes through a formal legal system usually works to the benefit of those with the resources to hire expensive lawyers and to have influenced the formulation of the laws in the first place. Related to that, in countries like Ecuador ‘human rights [become] frequently perceived as instruments of neo-colonial dominion’, anthropocentric and individualistic (Waldmueller 2015: 16). The concepts of risk and security are equally essential, as partners to concepts of harm, rights and duties (see e.g. Gasper 2014). Like the World Development Report 2010, the IPCC 2014 Assessment Report appears to have been precluded politically and due to its own intellectual cosmology from using the language of human rights. So its Synthesis Report resorted to the language of risk, in order to express a concern for people, vulnerable humans and the eco-systems in which we co-exist. We saw that the SYR-SPM took up the risk language that was distinctive to Working Group II, and used it to construct its central narrative in a linked series of ‘Reasons for Concern’ and highlighted statements. This language communicated the threat to things of value in a way that is familiar and accessible to current decision-makers; and it implies a need to study and respond even when we face uncertainty and have not precisely quantified the danger or cannot do so. The SYR-SPM similarly found ways to convey more of what is at stake, through the use of ‘intensifier’ terms (Fløttum et al. 2016). Not least, it

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employed the adjective irreversible twelve times, more than in the other three SPMs combined. Irreversibility becomes worth stressing when things of great value are at stake. Here is one such highlighted statement: Without additional mitigation efforts beyond those in place today, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts globally (high confidence). (IPCC 2014b: SYR-SPM, p. 16)

The Synthesis Report thus constructed an overall picture that communicated to its core audience/controllers in governments some hint of the human tragedies that have begun and await us. It remains far from enough: muted, indirect, incomplete, conservative in many ways. The overall report contained a chapter on human security (Adger et al. 2014), but this was explicitly not an analysis in terms of human rights (Working Group II, p. 759, Box 12.1).21 The chapter is a massive literature review on multiple possible pathways of impact of climate change on human security, that might not gain many readers or have a distinct influence.22 But it was a reflection of a very large body of research since the 1990s (for example in the Global Environmental Change and Human Security research network 1999–2010) that has looked in a cross-sectoral way at the impacts on people’s lives. In contrast to the thrust in some human rights thinking, human security analyses recognize people as inextricably situated in a ­natural environment and a bigger web of interrelations, and as dependent and vulnerable therein. No rivalrous story-line is appropriate or desirable here. Both human security analyses and human rights analyses contribute importantly to bringing out the human significances of climate change, which otherwise become submerged under conventions of impersonal scientific language and of wealth-dominated and nation-state centered structuring of discussion agendas.

5.5   Conclusion We saw, as indicative of the state of mainstream contemporary climate studies, the relatively marginal treatment of people in the key components of the IPCC’s 2014 Assessment Report, the Summaries for Policy Makers. Human significance was not a dominant criterion within an intellectual framing derived from natural science and from the precautions of wealthy

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nations and the interests of their corporations and more wealthy inhabitants. Often very conservative estimates of climate change and especially of its impacts are generated; ‘very conservative’ means in this case demonstrably too low. One implication of the discussion above is the need for value-conscious philosophical involvement at all stages in climate analyses, to influence the questions asked, the categories and vocabularies used, the framing of issues, the criteria for the data used, and so on: thus not only the surface talk about values but the value-related choices that arise throughout the analyses (Tuana 2013). What can drive and energize such involvement? Different keys will fit different locks in diverse socio-political settings. But we may well require in each setting functional equivalents of most of the elements of ontological re-framing that we saw in Laudato Si’, including secular versions that provide a language that can be more widely shared than religious formulations, notably in robust variants of human rights and human security discourse. Most of the Papal encyclical can indeed be rendered in secular terms, as was partly essayed here, covering what any effective human-oriented discourse on climate change requires: including an open affirmation of the primacy of the interests of ordinary people, recognition of the problem of mal-development (St.Clair 2014), and an understanding of people as part of nature.

Notes 1. This section draws on work co-authored with Kjersti Fløttum of the University of Bergen and Asuncion Lera St.Clair (then) of the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO, Oslo) in a Norwegian Research Council funded research project on AR5 (see Fløttum et al. 2016). 2. The word count of the full text of each document is: WGI-SPM The Physical Science Basis (2013): 14,739 words; WGII-SPM Impacts, Adaptation & Vulnerability (2014): 12,735 words; WGIII-SPM Mitigation of Climate Change (2014): 14,512 words; SYR-SPM Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report (2014): 14,894 words. Excluded here are the figures and tables, which were called ‘Supplementary Material’ in pre-final drafts. 3. As cited at: http://www.ipcc-wg3.de/assessment-reports/fifth-assessment-report/summary-for-policy-makers. 4. These exclusions are the norm in this paper. We focus on the topics and argumentation in the text proper of the SPMs. 5. For much fuller comparison of vocabularies, see Fløttum et al. (2016).

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6. This contrast between the frequencies continues when we include not only cases of ‘human’ (as in Table  5.1) but also those of ‘Human’: it moves from 13-36-11-24 to 15-43-13-25, as we move through WGs I, II, III and the Synthesis Report. The less abstract term ‘people’ also occurs, but much less: 0-19-4-7 across the four SPMs. 7. WGII’s SPM went as far as saying: ‘People who are socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally, or otherwise marginalized are especially vulnerable to climate change and also to some adaptation and mitigation responses (medium evidence, high agreement). … [Causes] include, for example, discrimination on the basis of gender, class, ethnicity, age, and (dis)ability.” (IPCC 2014b: 6); but it did not proceed to specify and quantify this, for example the mortality impacts for low-income infants and old people, in contrast to its quantification of much else. 8. The same applies for the World Development Report 2010 on climate change (see Gasper et al. 2013). 9. Fløttum, Gasper, St.Clair (2016) notes: ‘P.16  in WGII’s SPM becomes specific about impacts on GDP of rising sea-levels but not about the impacts on poor people’s lives. Pages 18 and 19 on impacts in urban areas and rural areas mention poor people as more vulnerable, but without specifics about what will be the costs—in terms of lives, livelihoods, and health…’ A 2014 WHO report on climate change and health appeared too late for mention in AR5, which was itself a symptom of the distribution of funding between topics and organizations. 10. For example, “Risk is a combination of the likelihood of an occurrence of a work-related hazardous event or exposure(s) and the severity of injury or ill health that can be caused by the event or exposure(s)” (OHSAS 18001 [Occupational Health & Safety Advisory Services], definition 3.21, 2007). 11. ‘Impacts generally refer to effects on lives, livelihoods, health status, ecosystems, economic, social, and cultural assets, services (including environmental), and infrastructure due to the interaction of climate changes or hazardous climate events occurring within a specific time period and the vulnerability of an exposed society or system’ (WGIIAR5-Glossary). 12. The terms threshold, crisis and catastrophe are similarly virtually absent from all the SPMs. 13. Other greenhouse gases are converted into CO2 equivalents. 14. We are grateful to Andrew Crabtree for this example. 15. Some of the discussion is viewable at https://video.ku.dk/ climate-congress-2009-closing-session-12. 16. Pope Francis quoted, first, Pope Benedict’s Address to the Bundestag, Berlin (22 September 2011) and, second, Patriarch Bartholomew’s Utstein lecture of 23 June 2003. 17. Klein (2015b) underlines this, quoting Cardinal Turkson at a Vatican event: ‘the Cardinal points out that “the word ‘stewardship’ only appears

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twice” in the encyclical. The word “care,” on the other hand, appears dozens of times. This is no accident, we are told. While stewardship speaks to a relationship based on duty, “when one cares for something it is something one does with passion and love.”’ 18. An ‘apocryphal adaptation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s account of many people’s response to the Nazis conveys the spirit of this eco-religious sentiment: ‘First they came for the trees and I said nothing. Then they came for the animals and I was quiet. Next they came for the blacks; I remained silent. Then they came for the poor and still I did not act. Eventually, when I was of no further use to them, they came for me too.’ 19. For example: ‘Ecuador is constantly threatened by erupting volcanoes, melt-down of glaciers, floods and droughts, and is heavily exposed to the El Niño/La Niña phenomena.’ (Waldmueller 2015: 17). 20. See however Waldmueller (2015) for an account of work in Ecuador to meld buen vivir thought and the human rights indicators framework of the UN High Commission for Human Rights. 21. Possibly no human rights scholars were in the human security chapter team. 22. Human security is defined as: ‘when the vital core of human lives is protected, and when people have the freedom and capacity to live with dignity’ (IPCC Working Group II, p. 759).

References Adger, W. N. et al. (2014). Human Security. In Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (pp.  755–791). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Allen, M., Frame, D., Huntingford, C., Jones, C., Lowe, J., Meinshausen, M., & Meinshausen, N. (2009). Warming Caused by Cumulative Carbon Emissions Towards the Trillionth Tonne. Nature, 458(7242), 1163–1166. Alston, P., & Robinson, M. (Eds.). (2005). Human Rights and Development  – Towards Mutual Reinforcement. New York: Oxford University Press. Archer, D., & Brovkin, V. (2008). The Millennial Atmospheric Lifetime of Anthropogenic CO2. Climatic Change, 90(3), 283–297. Birdsall, W.  F. (2014). Development, Human Rights, and Human Capabilities: The Political Divide. Journal of Human Rights, 13(1), 1–21. Deneulin, S. (2006). “Necessary Thickening” – Ricoeur’s Ethic of Justice as a Complement to Sen’s Capability Approach. In S.  Deneulin, M.  Nebel, & N. Sagovsky (Eds.), The Capability Approach: Transforming Unjust Structures. Dordrecht: Springer.

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Deneulin, S. (2012). Justice and Deliberation About the Good Life: The Contribution of Latin American buen vivir Social Movements to the Idea of Justice. Working Paper 17. Centre for Development Studies, University of Bath. Deneulin, S., Nebel, M., & Sagovsky, N. (2006). Introduction. In S. Deneulin, M.  Nebel, & N.  Sagovsky (Eds.), The Capability Approach: Transforming Unjust Structures. Dordrecht: Springer. Dershowitz, A. (2004). Rights From Wrong: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights. New York: Basic Books. Fløttum, K., Gasper, D., & St.Clair, A. L. (2016). Synthesizing a Policy-Relevant Message from the Three IPCC “Worlds” – A Comparison of Topics and Frames in the SPMs of the Fifth Assessment Report. Global Environmental Change, 38, 118–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.03.007. Gasper, D. (1987). Motivations and Manipulations – Some Practices of Appraisal and Evaluation. Manchester Papers on Development, 3, 24–70. Gasper, D. (2007a). Human Rights, Human Needs, Human Development, Human Security. Forum for Development Studies, 34(1), 9–43. Gasper, D. (2007b). What Is the Capability Approach? Its Core, Rationale, Partners and Dangers. Journal of Socio-Economics, 36(3), 335–359. Gasper, D. (2008). From ‘Hume’s Law’ To Policy Analysis for Human Development – Sen After Dewey, Myrdal, Streeten, Stretton and Haq. Review of Political Economy, 20(2), 233–256. Gasper, D. (2014). Human Security Analysis as a Framework for Value-Oriented Governance – The Example of Climate Change. International Journal of Social Quality, 4(2), 6–27. Gasper, D. (2018). Insouciance, Indifference and Any Inspiration in the Face of Emergent Global Crises? In B.  Jessop & K.  Knio (Eds.), The Pedagogy of Economic, Social and Political Crises – Crisis Dynamics, Construals, and Lessons. London: Routledge. Gasper, D., Portocarrero, A. V., & St.Clair, A. L. (2013). The Framing of Climate Change and Development: A Comparative Analysis of the Human Development Report 2007/8 and the World Development Report 2010. Global Environmental Change, 23(1), 28–39. Gibbons, E. (2014). Climate Change, Children’s Rights, and the Pursuit of Intergenerational Climate Justice. Health and Human Rights, 16(1), 19–31. Hansen, J., Sato, M., & Ruedy, R. (2012). Perception of Climate Change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(37), E2415–E2423. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1205276109. Hansen, J., et al. (2015). Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms: Evidence from Paleoclimate Data, Climate Modeling, and Modern Observations that 2°C Global Warming Is Highly Dangerous. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 15, 20059–20179. https://doi.org/10.5194/acpd-15-20059-2015. Howard-Hassmann, R. E. (2012). Human Security: Undermining Human Rights? Human Rights Quarterly, 34(1), 88–112.

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Inman, M. (2008). Carbon Is Forever. Nature Reports Climate Change, 2, 156–158. IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). (2007). Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. IPCC. (2012). Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. IPCC. (2014a). Fifth Assessment Report. Geneva: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Including four component reports: (1) Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis; (2) Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability; (3) Mitigation of Climate Change; (4) AR5 Synthesis Report. IPCC. (2014b). Summary for Policymakers. In C. B. Field et al. (Eds.), Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (pp. 1–32). Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISSC/UNESCO. (2013). World Social Science Report 2013  – Changing Global Environments. OECD-UNESCO Publishing. Klein, N. (2015a). This Changes Everything. Penguin Books UK. Klein, N. (2015b). A Radical Vatican? New Yorker, July 10. http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-visit-to-the-vatican. Klein Goldewijk, B. (Ed.). (2007). Religion, International Relations and Development Cooperation. Wageningen: Wageningen Academic Publishers. Matthews, H.  D., Gillett, N.  P., Stott, P.  A., & Zickfeld, K. (2009). The Proportionality of Global Warming to Cumulative Carbon Emissions. Nature, 459(7248), 829–832. McMichael, A. et al. (2004). Global Climate Change. In M. Ezzati, A. D. Lopez, A. Rodgers, & C. Murray (Eds), Comparative Quantification of Health Risks: Global and Regional Burden of Disease Due to Selected Major Risk Factors (Chapter 20, pp. 1543–1649). Geneva: World Health Organization. Mignaqui, V. (2014). Sustainable Development as a Goal – Social, Environmental and Economic Dimensions. International Journal of Social Quality, 4(1), 57–77. Nolt, J. (2011). How Harmful Are the Average American’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Ethics, Policy & Environment, 14(1), 3–10. Nolt, J. (2013). Replies to Critics of ‘How Harmful are the Average American’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions?’. Ethics, Policy & Environment, 16(1), 111–119. Odenbaugh, J. (2011). This American Life. Ethics, Policy & Environment, 14(1), 27–29. Patz, J. A., Campbell-Lendrum, D., Holloway, T., & Foley, J. A. (2005). Impact of Regional Climate Change on Human Health. Nature, 438, 310–317. Pope Francis. (2015). Laudato Si’ (Praise Be To You) – On Care For Our Common Home. Rome: Vatican.

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Ricoeur, P. (1996). Fragility and Responsibility. In R. Kearny (Ed.), Paul Ricoeur: The Hermeneutics of Action. London: Sage. Rocca, S. (2014). Climate Change and Human Rights. Dissertation, The Hague: International Institute of Social Studies. Rocca, S., & Gasper, D. (2015). Is An Individual’s Impact on Health Harm via Climate Change Ethically Negligible? Final version of a report presented to CERES conference on The Right to a Sustainable Future, June 30, 2014, Utrecht University. In Semantic Scholar, https://www.semanticscholar.org/ paper/Is-An-Individual-%E2%80%99-s-Harmful-Impact-on-HumanHealth-ROCCA-Gasper/8b7b9eddc3e83441ec4bdaa9f0cc8a89765f5e82 and https://repub.eur.nl/pub/77909/Metis_204229.pdf. Romm, J. (2015). James Hansen Spells Out Climate Danger Of The ‘Hyper-­ Anthropocene’ Age. Climate Progress, July 27. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/07/27/3684564/james-hansen-climate-danger-hyperanthropocene/. Scherer, G. (2012). Climate Science Predictions Prove Too Conservative. Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-sciencepredictions-prove-too-conservative/. Shue, H. (2006). Ethical Dimensions of Public Policy. In M. Moran, M. Rein, & R. Goodin (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy (Chapter 15). Oxford: Oxford University Press. St.Clair, A.  L. (2014). The Four Tasks of Development Ethics at Times of a Changing Climate. Journal of Global Ethics, 10(3), 283–291. Stern, N. (2007). The Economics of Climate Change – The Stern Review. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tuana, N. (2013). Embedding Philosophers in the Practices of Science: Bringing Humanities to the Sciences. Synthese, 190(11), 1955–1973. United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www. un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/. United Nations. (2012). General Assembly Resolution 66/290, 2012 on Human Security: United Nations, A/66/L.55/Rev.1∗. Waldmueller, J. (2015). “Living Well Rather Than Living Better”  – Measuring Biocentric Human–Nature Rights and Human–Nature Development in Ecuador. International Journal of Social Quality, 5(2), 7–28. WHO (World Health Organization). (2002). The World Health Report 2002. Geneva: WHO. WHO (World Health Organization). (2014). Quantitative Risk Assessment of the Effects of Climate Change on Selected Causes of Death, 2030s and 2050s (S. Hales, S. Kovats, S. Lloyd, & D. Campbell-Lendrum, Eds.). Geneva: World Health Organization. World Bank. (2010). World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change. Washington, DC: World Bank.

CHAPTER 6

Human Development Thinking About Climate Change Requires a Human Rights Agenda and an Ontology of Shared Human Security Des Gasper

6.1   Introduction: The Future Is Another Country Massive harm to human rights is underway as a result of ongoing anthropogenic climate change which will destroy many people’s livelihoods and shorten and endanger many lives. Mainstream politics and mainstream policy analyses have largely underplayed this, including through lack of This chapter grows out of my earlier paper ‘Climate Change: The need for a human rights agenda within a framework of shared human security’, that appeared in Social Research: An International Quarterly of the Social Sciences [2012, vol. 79(4), pp. 983–1014]. The present version extends the discussion to cover human development thinking more fully and updates the arguments.

D. Gasper (*) International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Crabtree (ed.), Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38905-5_6

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direct attention to the lives and deaths of the poor rather than to aggregate physical and monetary impacts, lack of attention to cross-sector and cross-nation interactions, and treatments of uncertainty and risk that are slanted towards the concerns of high-income big greenhouse-gas emitters (Gasper and Rocca 2020). These analyses reflect a mutually reinforcing lack of attention to, lack of awareness of, and lack of active sympathy for vulnerable and low-income groups around the world (Gasper 2014). That perspective is combined with a vision of never-ending economic growth and a conception of identity that does not extend beyond the warm nest of the nation. The capability approach as such may offer too little for criticizing and changing this mind-set. It does not sufficiently engage with the underlying issues of nationalism, consumerism, indifference or hostility to the Other, and faith in salvation through technology; it does not offer enough moral energy. Other parts of a human development approach broadly conceived are thus essential: the ethics of human rights and the ontological perspective of human security analysis.1 John Holdren, President Obama’s Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, has described humankind’s current approach to climate change like this: ‘…we’re driving in a car with bad brakes in a fog and heading for a cliff. We know for sure now that the cliff is out there, we just don’t know exactly where it is. Prudence would suggest that we should start putting on the brakes’ (quoted by Friedman 2009, 160). Holdren here speaks of humankind in the way that we do of an individual, so the appeal is to a principle of non-psychosis, to avoid self-­ wounding. However, in the climate change situation those who are driving the global car towards the climate cliff might not be those who will themselves go over the cliff. Most of the victims and especially most of the worst affected will be low-income persons who are riding insecurely on the bumpers and the car roof, and especially the children and grandchildren of present-day such adults. More precise were the words of UNESCO’s advisory World Commission on the Ethics of Science and Technology: ‘What is already unequivocally known about global climate change is that it poses a risk of ethically unacceptable harm which is uncertain only in terms of [exact] magnitude and timing’ (COMEST 2010, 29).2 To improve on Holdren’s analogy, the situation we face can be compared to that of a fleet of supertankers on autopilot, heading towards a waterfall. The declared strengths of the capitalist market economy—that it has no need for a central authority and no need for goodwill in order to achieve good results, thanks to its ability to constructively mobilize everyone’s energies—imply dangers when dealing

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with a different challenge than how to expand commoditized production. When the categories used in the market economy exclude vitally i­ mportant factors about damage to environments and to distant vulnerable groups they lead us into the style of: ‘Approaching Hazard – Full Steam Ahead!’. Similarly, the virtues of dispersion of authority in a world of nation-states— that each country can use its local knowledge, traditions and values, for prompt, relevant and locally acceptable management of its own affairs— bring dangers when dealing with webs of interconnection that far transcend national boundaries, such as the linkages in the earth’s climate system. We need to refine the allegory. The waterfalls span only part of the river and some supertankers think their sailing path is favourable so that it will not be they who plunge over the falls. In some countries and some important social echelons a perception rules that ‘we’ will be safe, even if others perish. True, ‘even a 2 degree rise in average temperatures will have catastrophic effects for [some] populations living on small islands, large river deltas, or other low-lying areas’ (COMEST 2010, 36). Further, it will disproportionately endanger babies and small children in marginal families in marginal environments (WHO 2002; World Bank 2014). But these are all groups whom one can, by various devices, avoid thinking about. Suppose too that some of the tankers imagine that through rapid technological innovation they will transform into tanker-airplanes that will be able to soar upwards before arrival at the falls. Prevalent in the contemporary world is a vision of endless economic growth based on a presumed magic of the market combined with technological wizardry that together will save us from all evil. In this situation we cannot expect a rapidly negotiated or commanded reorientation. We require ethical and policy languages that will help to motivate and coordinate diverse efforts worldwide. A philosophy that defends the likely victims of climate change must somehow help counteract the major mirages or temptations already mentioned: first, the warm nest of national identity conceived in such a way that we see ourselves as separate from, even immune to, the misfortunes that may beset much of the rest of the world, and such that when ‘we’ expect to be safe we rest indifferent to the fate of others; second, the dream of growth, economic and technological, that will enable ‘us’—whether conceived as particular national tankers or particular affluent groups and persons—to soar upwards and avoid the waterfalls when we encounter shared planetary boundaries and the consequent dangers; and, third, our ability to screen out unpalatable information or questions, such as about the fate of ‘marginal’ groups,

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those in the islands, deltas and other physically or socially exposed locations, small children and the elderly in low-income households, and to keep ourselves busy with self-interested activities regardless of their indirect effects on others. Human rights philosophy provides a suitable language here in many respects. It helps to provide a wake-up call and mobilizer of concern. Its cosmopolitanism, the concern with all people everywhere, makes it adequate to the reality in which individuals and agents around the world, not only states as blocs, affect other people around the world. It conveys the wrongness of harming others, which is central in this case where consumers and producers of greenhouse gases bring damage to others worldwide. A formulation such as Henry Shue’s discourse of basic rights (Shue 1996) conveys the priority to respect basic needs fulfilment for all. The forcefulness of human rights language helps it to command attention, and its universal familiarity and comprehensibility allow it to serve as a medium of inter-group and cross-national communication and collaboration. Note though that a comparable campaign for global change, the campaign centred in Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries against the slave trade, took over fifty years to change legislation, even in an era of great public championing of philosophies of liberty. Many further decades were required to implement the legislation, move against slavery itself, and act not only in Britain but also around the world (Crawford 2002). In contrast, climate scientists warn us that a radical change of course within the next decade or two is required, given the limits of the estimated relatively safe carbon-space available to humankind.3 Is traditional human rights discourse strong enough for mobilizing active goodwill and cooperation of the scale that is required? Is it a sufficient framework, given its individualistic and legalistic character (Gasper 2007a, 2009a)? Canada’s 2011 walkout from the Kyoto Protocol, for example, reflected not an open rejection of ideas of human rights, but in effect a rejection or lack of a picture of shared human fate and interconnectedness on Planet Earth. The focus of loyalty, the warm nest, is the nation; those outside one’s nation are treated as falling outside one’s moral community. To adapt the words of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain speaking in September 1938: ‘How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be talking about reducing consumption and changing our lifestyle because of supposed problems in a far-away and future country populated by people of whom we know nothing.’4 To equate the scope of rights and obligations with the present-day citizenry

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within the nation-state has in the past two generations become even more obsolescent, in our increasingly intensively causally interconnected globe. Correspondingly, human rights thinking requires re-articulation within a human security perspective that considers the human species across generations and millennia, our planetary habitat and its vulnerabilities, our fears and causal, emotional and ethical interconnections, within a perspective of the species’ evolution and unguaranteed perpetuation (CHS 2003; Brauch et al. 2008; ISSC/UNESCO 2013). To respond to the challenges of global climate change, traditional human rights formulations remain appropriate goals but are not a sufficient set of instruments. This essay looks first at the temptations and mirages: the ideologies of the warm nest of the nation and of problem-transcending growth, and the visionless vision of overlooking the weak, ignoring marginal people, and excluding the Other. Second, it considers the limitations for these purposes of capability analysis; the vital contributions of the human rights approach, but why it is insufficient; and the value-added by formulating and pursuing human rights within a vision of shared human security. An adequate response to climate change requires, besides scientific analyses, ethical and policy languages that help motivate and mobilize worldwide for a move beyond unlimited economic expansion to an acceptance of finitude and a rethinking of the contents of ‘human’ and ‘well-being’. Emphatically liberal versions of human development and capability language that primarily stress increasing the range of attainable valued options have limits in contributing here, as evident for example in the global Human Development Report 2011 on sustainability (Gasper et al. 2013a). Human rights language, in contrast, makes clear that injustice is occurring against future generations and already born children, as was highlighted by the human rights oriented Human Development Report of 2007/8. But we need to place a human rights perspective in a framework of human security thinking which conveys more fully what is ‘human’—including vulnerability and mutual dependence, connection to future generations and dependence on a global ecology—and helps us to view humankind as a ‘community of fate’. Only then will the ‘common-sense’ that guides institutionalized routine practice in politics, policy and business begin to change. To a normative ontology of the value of human persons, as in human rights work, human security thinking can add an explanatory ontology of interconnectedness. This would provide the basis necessary for climate change ethics and appropriate national and global public action.

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6.2   Diagnosis – I: The Warm Nest of the Nation In December 2011 the Canadian government walked out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, under which it had agreed to reduce by 2012 its greenhouse gas emissions by 6% compared to 1990 levels. Its emissions had instead risen by 24%. Citing the costs to each Canadian citizen of ‘following Kyoto’, a country that had in the late 1990s championed human security principles in foreign policy abandoned its earlier commitment rather than compensate for its non-fulfilment by buying carbon credits to cover its excess emissions. Put differently, it decided that the costs inflicted on others, including future generations and people outside Canada, would be ignored and not paid for by the present-day Canadian producers and consumers who are responsible for them. Principles cited by Canada in its era of human security advocacy before 2006, when it sought a distinctive international profile of high moral tone—principles of interconnection, mutual respect, responsibility for the effects of one’s actions, and contribution in light also of one’s response-ability—were abandoned. Canada was not unique in such behavior. Saudi Arabia, a proselytizing power for a great universal religion, has been a shame-free obstructer of carbon controls. Canada’s U-turn was more shocking, since expectations are higher for democratic states. Dani Rodrik (2011) warns us though of the tensions between nationalism, democracy, and economic globalization. A country may be able to uphold any two of these, but faces difficulty to respect all three, he argues. Prior to full-blooded economic globalization, European economies could combine nationalism and democracy. Nowadays though, the tribulations of the European economic union suggest that its members need either to pool sovereignty, moving beyond nationalism except on the sports field, or to reduce their exposure to economic globalization. Canada’s example, amongst others, suggests that we need to extend Rodrik’s analysis to include a fourth principle, even harder to combine with the forces of nationalism, democracy and globalized markets: environmental sustainability and the interests of future generations. Canada’s Kyoto walk-out was an expression of democracy, responding to voters’ expressed concerns, while seeking to cope with the competitive pressures of economic globalization; within a nationalist frame, where the voices that are expressed and counted are only those within the national nest. What it rejected was sustainability. To pay attention to climate damage would mean attending to the interests of the present and future g ­ enerations

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affected by Canadian emissions. Both of these groups are 99.6% nonCanadian, and they are instead left to look after themselves. Possibly the view from the national nest sees future-generation Canadians—probably wrongly—as better served by being richer regardless of the costs Canadians inflict on others worldwide, since by being richer they can supposedly protect themselves against both climate change and the harmed foreigners. Until now, countries like Canada do not feel much connection, moral or causal, to the global South. Northern fishing fleets have ignored fishing limits and have exhausted fisheries off Southern shores, for example off Senegal or the Cape of Good Hope, removing the livelihoods of local fisherpeople whose small boats cannot compete. These impacts are not noticed in the North, or are treated as like any market competition for resources or customers. In the case of climate change, the degree of mental and moral alienation in the North is yet stronger; for it is exacerbated, Gardiner (2011) underlines, by the plurality of agents who contribute to such effects and the wide dispersion of the effects of one’s actions in space and in time. The effects fall not simply on people far distant in identity from the perpetrators, on people who are not part of ‘us’ and not considered objects of moral loyalty, but who are not even noticed or individually identifiable. There are innumerable agents and innumerable victims. In such an impersonal arena, relationships become like those in the global market: one becomes held responsible for the damage one causes only when an enforceable law protects those who are damaged. The term ‘the environment’ is itself indicatively inadequate, suggests Kovel (2007). It means that which is external: the sink into which Man dumps wastes. ‘Ecology’ is a more adequate term, he proposes, for it suggests interconnections. Ecological consciousness considers nature-nature connections, human–nature connections and the mutual constitution of people and nature, and human–human connections and people’s mutual constitution through interaction. The national nest’s felt status as an isolated moral universe relates to a perception of it as a substantially causally isolated universe. This is part of a perceived separation from one’s ‘environment’, meaning here the other countries or parts of the world upon which one rains wastes. Indifference to the situation of others reflects not only lack of sympathy but lack of attention, which in turn reflects and reinforces the mental structuring of one’s identity as something supposedly completely separate from other countries (Gasper 2014). Self-concerned nationalism in the context of global public goods leads to the sorts of disasters explored in game theory, for example regarding

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global fish stocks. The use of a national framing of issues and of solutions has also long reinforced policy stasis on climate change, partly because it contributed to inattention to high-emitters in low-income countries, which then reduced the willingness of high-emitter countries to act. As Harris (2010) observes, the affluent classes in middle-income and fast-­ growing low-income countries like China, Mexico, Brazil, India and Indonesia now account for a large share of global emissions, and there is no ethical case for not including those groups in a system of obligations. The intensity of resistance in the USA in particular to climate-change related obligations has, however, deeper causes. One factor may be the sheer implied size of the felt threat to people’s present life-style and self-­ image, so far do these deviate from the likely requirements of sustainability. Appeals to principles of human rights may then have little immediate impact. The disconnect of much of the general American (and Canadian) public from adequate reporting of the scientific information, and from careful ethical debate of the issues arising, reflects many factors other than academic involution and will not change quickly, given the current structures of power and identity and thus the habits of allocation of attention. The victory of Donald Trump confirmed this. Whereas liberals focus relatively more on issues of harm and fairness, conservatives concentrate more on in-group loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity, suggests some moral psychology research (e.g., Haidt and Graham 2007). Unless one appeals to conservatives’ self-interest and group-interest, one may not have much influence on them. Correspondingly, one can posit for most Americans and Canadians that only when they perceive global warming as being of direct major harm to themselves is rapid change in their stance likely. Perhaps North American corporations’ worldwide interests and calculations about global interconnection will help such an evolution eventually. At present however, many powerful groups in the USA and Canada feel that they may gain from global warming: through longer growing seasons, navigability of the Arctic Ocean, and access to mineral wealth beneath it. But the damage done to others will not remain quarantined far away. It will affect even North Americans in myriad ways. Human security analysis can help to widen the field of attention of important elite groups—corporate, military and political— and their awareness of global interconnections, in ways that could counteract insouciant and unenlightened narrowly self-referential stances (CNA 2007; Campbell et al. 2007; Moran 2011).

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Richard Schuhmann (2010) extended this line of analysis. To appeal to US conservatives one needs to refer to what they care about, especially implications for the USA, not for Bangladesh or Africa. Of particular relevance could be, first, attention to the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Conservative Americans feel well protected against general warming or even welcome it, but are sensitive to Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy type events that overwhelm normal protection even in the USA, and most of them can envisage the possible destabilizing impacts of similar events in far poorer countries. Second, one can highlight opportunities for the USA in the march to ‘the green economy’. Third, one may point to potential win-win paths that reduce emissions while increasing well-being, especially as compared to an alternative of eventual crisis, and that offer ways out of the current lose-lose ruts of a consumerist life-style (see e.g. Segal 1998 on commuters’ movement patterns and time-budgets). Fourth, some conservatives are sensitive to the accusation of inter-generational buck-passing. Conventional rates of time discount imply a drastic downgrading of the interests of one’s grandchildren and of their grandchildren, and are justified only if high economic growth can continue indefinitely—in other words only if the natural environment sets no limits (Shue 1996). Thomas Friedman of The New York Times essayed all four of these steps in his book on climate change for the general US audience, Hot, Flat and Crowded. He tried to make US conservatives think about climate change as a great business opportunity. He too assumed that high economic growth can continue indefinitely.

6.3   Diagnosis – II: The Song of Growth Friedman, like most mainstream authors (e.g., World Bank 2010; Stern 2010) is explicitly committed to not only economic development in presently poor countries but endlessly ongoing economic growth in rich countries. He believes emphatically that continuing economic growth in a country as wealthy as the USA is still potentially welfare-yielding. Authors like Nicholas Stern (former World Bank chief economist and author of the UK Government’s assessment of climate change) are more reticent here, but see growth as at least politically unavoidable. Stern declares that, to get political support for any national or international deals on climate, growth must be accepted to go on and on, and on. This forced his and similar projections of the required cuts in emissions-intensity (the volume

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of greenhouse gases [GHGs] generated per unit of national or global output) to become highly demanding: 80% cuts worldwide by 2050 (Stern 2010, 41), merely in order to not exceed a GHG level of 500 ppm (parts per million) which is far higher than most climate scientists consider safe. Even so, using a similar projection, the World Development Report 2010 asserts that ‘there is no reason to think that a low-carbon path must necessarily slow economic growth’ (World Bank 2010, 7)—no reason. Not only can economic growth supposedly be dematerialized, to avoid all net environmental impact, this can supposedly be done at relatively little cost. One factor behind this undying belief in never-ending growth, says Tim Jackson (2009), is the structure of contemporary capitalist economies, within which zero or negative growth is likely to mean increasing unemployment, loss of government revenue, increase of social security payments, budgetary crisis and possible generalized economic crisis. As on a treadmill, one must keep running in order not to be swept away. Ways exist to redesign the economic structure to avoid this bind, though these may threaten many vested interests. The agitation engendered by discussions about at some stage phasing-out economic growth is so great however that various authors posit additional socio-cultural and psychological sources: there is a ‘social logic’ of permanent growth as well as an economic treadmill. The past two generations have seen the emergence all over the world of individuals who define themselves and give meaning to their lives through new purchases, not only producers who rely on ever new cycles of this process (Jackson 2009; Hamilton 2010; Gasper 2009b). Friedman displays this sort of zeal for economic growth. The very word ‘growth’ seems to function for him as a talisman of the good; he keeps repeating it. We must keep on ‘innovating better ways to drive growth with fewer and fewer electrons’ (p. 232) and must ‘find a way to create wealth—because everyone wants to live better—without creating toxic assets in the financial world or the natural world that [will] overwhelm us’ (Friedman 2009, 9). We must have more: we want it, and, by assumption, economic growth is the only way for even rich countries to live better. That always more is wanted suggests though the emptiness of much of what is already possessed. Friedman’s journalistic ear is attuned to more than one song. Within his book’s 500 pages one finds frequent appeals to the can-do spirit of U.S. engineering, the magic of the market, and American nationalism. At a few points he even notes in addition that: ‘Without an ethic of conservation…the availability of abundant, clean, reliable, cheap electrons would

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turn into a license to rape our natural world’, an intensified orgy of consumerism (p. 236); and that without a love of nature, money values alone will never bring conservation (p. 370). Deeper still, without our paying attention to nature, being aware and appreciative, other policy tools will never suffice (p. 372). Yet he soon returns to: More, More, More—the goal of an ‘environment in which you, your company, and your community are constantly thinking about how to generate more growth, more mobility, more housing, more comfort, more security, more enjoyment, and more packaging [sic] from the most innovative use of the cleanest electrons and fewest resources’ (p. 380). This chant connects to his nationalism: greening is presented as ‘the best way to re-energize America, rebuild its self-confidence and moral authority’ (p. 391). Often, economic growth is presented as an essential part of modern identity: the source of hope, meaning, and self-profiling, at the level of individuals and especially of nations. It becomes the token of national strength, virility and vitality, ‘the symbol of life itself’ (Hamilton 2010, 64). ‘Growth is good’, a continuing source overwhelmingly of net benefits, declares the influential American economist Tyler Cowen (2018). ‘Growth is the name of the game’, in the words of former US Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury, George P. Shultz (interview on CNN, 14.11.2010). Arguably it becomes a channel for religious feeling, a source of ultimate orientation that cannot be questioned: ‘religious value seems now to be invested in the most profane object, growth of the economy, which at the individual level takes the form of the accumulation of material goods’ (Hamilton 2010, 33).5 This accumulation is supposedly so important that a year or so of economic growth outweighs the benefits of stabilizing the climate, or so we may infer from the practice of some leading economists. In the case of the Stern Review prepared for the UK Government, the estimated cost of ensuring that the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere does not exceed 450 ppm, thereby avoiding (in his model) destabilizing the world climate, equated to a bit over a year of foregone growth. This was judged to be too expensive. ‘It is acceptable, according to Stern, to ask people to wait an extra five months [in the time required] for their incomes to double but it is too much to ask them to wait a little more than a year [extra]’ (Hamilton 2010, 54). Taking serious additional risks with our future (mainly the future of later generations), by instead going up to 550 ppm, was deemed the proper balance.

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The leading climate economist William Nordhaus calculated that market valuations imply that the economically optimal path will be ‘to set the global thermostat at 2.6 degrees C [warmer] for the end of this century, rising to 3.5 degrees C [warmer] by 2200’ compared to pre-industrial levels, whereas most climate scientists think that this very seriously risks— or in fact guarantees—catastrophe, notes Hamilton (2010, 61; see also Nordhaus 2008).6 According to Hamilton, the sort of economic cost-­ benefit analysis of climate policy expounded by Stern and Nordhaus is part of a conception in which humans are seen as ‘radically separated from the world around them, and can therefore regard it [exclusively] as a realm that provides goods and services for human benefit’ (Hamilton 2010, 54). Earth’s climate system is seen as ‘like a central heating system that can be smoothly adjusted to a desired temperature’ (p. 62). The complexities and sensitivities of the climate system, including various potentially disastrous feedback loops, make this conception crazily inappropriate according to many scientists. The gulf between the approach of some leading economists and that of apparently the majority of climate scientists is disturbingly wide. The World Development Report 2010 on climate change yet presented the Stern Review as being on the pessimistic side, although most of its assumptions had already proven too optimistic. The 2010 Report used economic cost-benefit analysis as guide, and respectfully cited Nordhaus’s calculations (p. 8: Box 3). It added though that the calculations indicate that the extra costs of keeping warming to 2 or 2.5 degrees rather than 3 or 3.5 degrees are relatively small, since the extra mitigation costs would be largely offset by reduced adaptation costs. ‘The results therefore suggest that the cost of precautionary mitigation to 550 ppm is small’ (p. 8), less than half a per cent of economic product, which is presented as a reasonable cost for climate insurance. Even this type of sensitivity to risk and hence inclination to insurance is itself at risk when analysis and policy are dominated by groups with the lowest exposure to misfortune or largest ability to absorb it. Mentioned in just one sentence in the World Development Report’s huge Overview chapter were an extra three million deaths per year from malnutrition due to crop failures in the business-as-­ usual scenario that leads to more than 5 degrees warming by 2100 (pp. 4–5). Even in the optimistic 2 degrees warming scenario: ‘Between 100 million and 400 million more people could be at risk of hunger. And 1 billion to 2 billion more people may no longer have enough water to

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meet their needs’ (p. 5). Such impacts carry little weight in economic cost-­ benefit analysis when they occur amongst the global poor. Deafness to human need is one of the several types of defective attention which we examine next. Important connections and possibilities get screened out by conventional mental frames, routines and authority structures. Frameworks of analysis in terms of conventional disciplinary bounds, national units and/or economic aggregates often marginalize the insecurities experienced by vulnerable people.

6.4   Diagnosis – III: Climate Silences We should note several areas of distortion and exclusion in analyses of climate change. First and fundamental is the relative lack of direct attention to the lives and deaths of poor people. Even the widely read summaries of the main reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concentrate on physical impacts and generalized discussions of damage (Fløttum et al. 2016; Gasper and Rocca 2020). Second, relatedly, comes deafness to inter-personal distribution of costs and benefits, due to the nature of the categories used; as where economic cost-­ benefit analysis counts monetized values, ignores people with no money, downplays those with little money and merges the measures regarding their lives into aggregate calculations which are dominated by the results for people with plenty of money (Stern 2007; World Bank 2010). Third: misuse of techniques is widespread, due to temptations generated by the volumes of money at stake. Although such manipulations are important, and are fostered by the money-focused worldview of the techniques themselves, they are not explored further here.7 We will say more on, fourth, the treatment of uncertainties and of inter-­ personal distribution of associated risks, and fifth, the downplaying of cross-sector linkages. Both these matters are central to how seriously or not we treat the insecurity in ordinary people’s lives. Much practice here reflects again the distorting pressures from money-power and national self-interest, this time upon the interpretation of what is good scientific procedure. All these later areas link to the first, the restriction of the information collected and circulated about the lives (and deaths) of poor people. Human rights principles, especially as applied in human security analysis, can help counteract these distortions, through making us aware of the impacts of different framings on the attention given to basic aspects of the lives of vulnerable people, and making us ask who and which values

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are being secured and whose interests guide our responses to risks and uncertainties. 6.4.1  Deafness on Distribution Economic cost-benefit analysis of the type practiced by Nordhaus for looking at climate change impacts involves a hardness of hearing to the lives of the poor and of future generations. If the monetary value of estimated benefits along a path—benefits which typically disproportionately accrue to well-off groups—outweighs the monetary value of estimated costs, which frequently disproportionately accrue to poorly-off groups, then the path is approved, regardless of whether or not poorly-off and disadvantaged groups are compensated for losses. If they are not compensated, then just as when climate change mitigation and adaptation are deemed supposedly too expensive, this ‘amounts to harming others for money’ (Garvey 2008, 111). Such use of economic cost-benefit analysis represents extension of the technique beyond its realm of justifiable application (DeMartino and McCloskey 2016). It emerged as an extension of private sector business calculations into the public realm, and rested on, inter alia, two assumptions: that it was for comparison of relatively modest alternatives that did not involve dramatic transformations that sacrifice some people’s lives for gain by already well-off others; and that those who lose from one project will gain from the next, not that some people, notably those with little purchasing power, will be systematically and consistently disadvantaged— for example through displacement from their home or through construction of high-pollution facilities that harm them—while others, notably those with ample purchasing power, are consistently advantaged. We are interested also in other types of distribution: the distributions of weather variations, in a given year and over the years, and the attention given to ‘tail-end events’ at the extremes of a distribution—rare events but with disproportionately severe impacts, especially for the most vulnerable groups; the distribution thus of the associated stresses, over different social groups; and the distribution of scientific and policy attention to these stresses on different groups, where unfortunately the inequalities of purchasing power and associated political power can influence the degree of notice and weight given to the stresses. For example, monetization of impacts relatively downgrades the weight given to impacts on poor people; when negative impacts are treated as monetizable, then in assessments

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made at an aggregate level the damage done to very low-income people— the loss of their monetized economic contribution, even loss of their life— becomes of little import and is readily outweighed by other elements in the economic assessment. More generally, aggregation across people and across time tends to hide the devastating extreme events and the impacts on the unfortunate (IPCC 2012; Gasper 2013a; Stanton and Ackerman 2014; World Bank 2014). The 2010 World Development Report, for example, offered a comforting estimate of the economic impact of prospective climate change, in global aggregate terms: ‘a global average GDP loss of about 1 percent’ (p. 5), if warming is limited to 2 degrees C, the long-discussed maximum supposedly safe rise that is now very likely to be exceeded. Besides the likely over-optimism of such an estimate, things look different when seen from Africa, with reference to the jeopardized livelihoods of many low-­ income people and the knock-on effects. ‘Warming of 2°C could result in a 4 to 5 percent permanent reduction in annual income per capita in Africa and South Asia’ (World Bank 2010, 5). Restricting global average warming to 2 degrees C would still mean temperature rises of 4 degrees C in many inland parts of Africa, beyond the limits of temperature tolerance for many crops, even in an average year. In addition, the periodic exceptional years and the extreme periods within almost any year will become notably more frequent and more damaging. Groups at the Durban COP-17 summit in 2011 protested that Africa-is-Roasting and You-Are-Cooking-­ Africa. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others have campaigned against a perceived quiet genocide against the African poor; and warned that ‘as climate change destroys livelihoods, displaces people, and undermines entire social and economic systems, no country—however rich or powerful—will be immune to the consequences’ (Tutu, in UNDP 2007, 166). 6.4.2  Deafness on Extreme Events and Extreme Responses Such climate stresses could take some societies outside their bounds of adaptive capacity; or, put in a more nuanced way, take these societies into ranges where their adaptive capacity is less able to cope when other stress factors strike too, as suggested already by experiences in parts of inland Africa such as Darfur in Sudan. Using a range of sets of assumptions to reflect the uncertainties, Devitt and Tol (2012) modelled a set of scenarios for Sub-Saharan Africa that explored some likely impacts left out by previous IPCC models: how climate change increases chances of conflict, which

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reduces economic growth, which further increases chances of conflict and reduces ability to adapt to climate change, which together further reduce economic growth; and so on. Whereas most of Sub-Saharan Africa presently has rapid growth, certain countries are shown to be in serious danger of becoming trapped in poverty and conflict. Behind the bland aggregations, generalizations and exclusions in the economic calculations of Nordhaus, the 2010 World Development Report, and the influential Stern Report, reality is more complex. As the energy stored in the global climate system increases and as some weather patterns become less stable we must think about climate variability and extreme weather events not only averages (IPCC 2012), and about how these affect real people in vulnerable situations. Human security analysis looks at how ordinary people in diverse situations seek to cope and to fulfil their needs, as they interpret them in their particular situation constituted by the intersection of multiple systems and subject to diverse periodic shifts and shocks (O’Brien et al. 2010; Redclift and Grasso 2013; Gasper 2019). It guides us to consider the impacts in vulnerable persons’ lives, and to see that even vulnerable people have powers to react, that will affect globally interconnected economic and political systems. People in low-income countries are already far more likely to be hit by environmental disasters— violent storms, flash floods, droughts—than those in rich countries. Poor people in all countries are proportionately more exposed, for they live in the less sheltered and secure locations and have fewer resources with which to protect themselves or recover. Some people will be crushed by the intersection of multiple forces and trends, including both gradual decline and extreme events. When Hurricane Katrina (a low-deaths but highly-­ documented case) struck New Orleans the victims were especially Afro-­ Americans, poorer people (since they lived in the riskier locations), people over sixty (this group suffered more than 60% of the 1800 deaths), and notably persons who were all of these. Leichenko and O’Brien (2008) show more generally how the groups who are most threatened by environmental change are often the groups who are most exposed by economic change. They have fewer resources, of all types, to use in protection and recovery and are thus more damaged than other groups by the same exposure and by their actual high exposure. Human security analyses essay this holistic examination of the lives of specific groups of people and reveal such combinations of factors and their interactions (O’Brien et al. 2010). Some people who are harmed will react, as highlighted by work in conflict studies (e.g.: Campbell et  al. 2007; Dyer 2010). When normative

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bottom-lines of fulfilment of basic rights are felt to have been violated, results can be similar to when a natural threshold is breached: eruption or collapse. One region-by-region world review concludes: ‘On the basis of the evidence presented here, it is clear that the most significant consequences of climate change during the next few decades are likely to arise from, or be substantially amplified by, human responses to natural phenomena whose immediate effects may appear to be relatively modest’ (Moran 2011, 8). 6.4.3  The ‘Risk’ of Not Being Precise Why do even IPCC models leave out what are likely to be ‘the most significant consequences of climate change’? Partly because the human responses are less closely predictable than for example the responses of plants to increased temperatures. The modellers would feel exposed if they presented estimates about occurrences that, while potentially considerably greater in terms of human significance, are harder to predict precisely. Further, the potential occurrences have huge political significance, for they have implications concerning the (lack of) wisdom and legitimacy of behaviour of many current power-holders. Many analysts have preferred to remain quiet about potential impacts on people who lack political weight, rather than rouse the ire of some major power-holders and their supporters, who are already incensed by even the estimates of confidently predictable physical implications of global warming. A similar socio-logic has applied in estimating the physical implications. Since the IPCC works by consensus, its conclusions have a conservative bias: they state the overwhelmingly demonstrable implications of corroborated quantified models, not also the further, more dramatic but less certain, possible implications of several other major trends. In general, the IPCC, like the rest of the mainstream of climate studies, has not paid much attention to the tails of distributions: the extreme scenarios that seem less likely but would be far more radical, especially for low-income people in exposed locations (Cline 2007; Stanton and Ackerman 2014). Overlapping with this, it has given little emphasis to cases where our knowledge of the exact parameters is shaky. A major example concerns melting of the polar ice-sheets. Part of the difficulty lies in estimating possible ‘tipping point’ behavior, such as when and how fast will ice-sheet melt accelerate when melting begins to reduce the power of the ice-caps to reflect back solar radiation; and similarly for when and how fast a

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­ ositive feedback is triggered between warming and the release of methp ane from Arctic permafrost. ‘Tipping points are usually not included in predictive models because of the difficulties of gauging the degree of nonlinearity of the processes involved and locating the exact position of the tipping points’ (van Renswoude et al. 2012, 10). ‘The risk of climate feedbacks is generally not included’ noted the 2007 IPCC Assessment Report (Working Group III Report, IPCC 2007, 173).8 Besides a regnant epistemic convention—that when we cannot be precise yet about an issue we will not highlight it, even though its implications could dwarf those about which we can as yet be precise—has lain also a tactical decision: to avoid a topic so sensitive that it could risk disruption of the discussion and in some situations even risk loss of funding (Schneider 2009). Yet zero ice-sheet melt plus zero feedbacks is the least likely case; indeed it is a fantasy scenario. Precise myths have been preferred to more realistic guesstimates. Only very gradually have we begun ‘to move toward recognizing the dangers of uncertainties in the so-called “fat tails” of the probability distributions of damages … and correspondingly [to] begin to endorse aggressive action as a reasonably priced insurance policy against potential disasters.’ (Cline 2007, 86). Why has this essential move been, and continued to be, so gradual and so belated? Donald Brown remarks how natural scientists are rarely taught the rationale of their tests and conventions, for example when is it relevant to require a 95% confidence level and when not (Brown 2013). McCloskey has long pointed out the excessive attention given by economists too to statistical significance rather than socio-economic significance (e.g. McCloskey and Ziliak 1996). To demand 95% confidence of a scenario of future large-scale disaster which can be averted by, in relative terms, modest measures is, to put it gently, not sensible. This happens though, partly because the risks of harm (as opposed to the risks of imprecision) are frequently disproportionately borne by outsider groups, those who are politically and/or economically marginal. The implicit principle followed is: ‘greatest loads for the weakest shoulders’. The ignored extremes of the distributions, and the other silences we have noted, typically reflect the near-invisible status of the moneyless and powerless. 6.4.4  The Question of: Whose Risks? Debate on global environmental change has been overly dominated by natural science questions and not sufficiently framed in terms of human

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significance, remark O’Brien et al. (2010). We need to think about which people face known dangers and which ones face the nastier sides of the inevitable uncertainties. ‘Risk’ can refer to calculable variability, which can be fitted into optimizing calculations such as Nordhaus’s, but also means possible undesirable effects, which are not known precisely but will often fall mostly on the weak and hence are too often ignored in the calculations of the powerful and by those whom they hire. Gasper and Rocca (2020) probe the meaning of being ‘conservative’ when assessing the risks of negative impacts of climate change on human health (e.g., WHO 2002, 2014). In rich countries, whereas ‘being conservative’ in engineering designs typically means incorporating high safety margins, being ‘conservative’ in debates on the health impacts of climate change has involved making the lowest possible estimates of expected global warming, excluding all types of impact for which confident precise quantification is not yet possible, and giving little or no attention to low probability but high damage cases (see e.g. a special issue in 2011 of Ethics, Policy & Environment). Implicitly, in both cases the predominant constituency for such analyses consists of high-income nations and persons, those who are strongly implicated in anthropogenic global warming.9

6.5   Responses: I – Sen’s Capability Approach and the Need for a Fuller Human Development Approach The work using Amartya Sen’s capability approach in relation to environmental sustainability considers individuals’ capabilities as the priority ‘space’ for evaluating alternatives. Valuable as this work can be, it does not strongly address the core issues we have seen above: the warm nest of national identity despite the reality of global interconnectedness, the song of economic growth, and the ‘climate silences’ regarding extreme events and recognition of risks. It remains a mostly technical exercise in some aspects of evaluation, not one offering sources of moral motivation and urgency. These are found more strongly in human rights and human security analyses with their emphases on moral wrongness, vulnerability and interconnectedness. Ortrud Lessmann (2014) remarks that only pointing to a category of ‘commitment’ to others does not itself generate moral commitment. In the absence too of a theory of which freedoms are

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­legitimate (Crabtree 2012), the strong emphases on the choosing reasoning citizen and increased individual freedoms do not provide sufficient basis for responding to the challenges of climate change. David Korten (1994) warned that in the absence of having a conscious political-economic critique the human development approach would become in practice implicitly dominated by liberal capitalist thinking. Capability theory’s much-repeated bicycle example, used to show the difference between a commodity and a capability (here the capability of mobility), is not extended to study the energy sources used in making bicycles (or cars), the political-economic context of fossil-fuel based capitalism, and the cultural context of commitment to endlessly more consumption. Causes of climate change, and the issues in trying to redirect the societal super-tankers that press ahead on fossil-fuel based autopilot (Klein 2014), remain in the background. All these weaknesses were reflected in for example the problematic Human Development Report 2011 on sustainability (UNDP 2011; see Gasper et al. 2013a). Sen’s article reprinted in a recent special issue of capability analysis on sustainability (Sen 2013) contrasts freedoms formulations with needs formulations, but refers to none of the needs theory from the 1970s onwards that helps us to consider criteria for basic priorities, causes of hyper-­ consumption, and criteria for thinking about what is enough (e.g. Braybrooke 1987; Brock 1998; Doyal and Gough 1991; Ekins and Max-­ Neef 1992; Gough 2017, or the Self-Determination Theory of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan).10 Needs theory understood only as a picture of individual deficits will not suffice, but needs theory as explored in generations of humanistic psychology, philosophical anthropology and social policy theory can assist us. While Sen’s capability approach arose for exercises in valuation, human development analysis can and should draw on much more in his work that is helpful in response to climate change. Equally or more important here are Sen’s entitlements analysis, that contributes a framework for joined-up thinking about how people live and can live, as experienced diversely by different groups, giving special attention to their fulfilment of basic needs and to what endangers this; and his ideas about the guiding values that we use to help select what is to be described and explained and to be included in a policy framework (Gasper 2007b, 2008).11 Required in addition is the moral energy and motivating force from human rights thinking.

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6.6   Responses – II: Human Rights 6.6.1  Countering the Climate Silences with a Human Rights Agenda ‘Human survival and world ethics go hand in hand; it is unlikely that we can have the former without the latter’ argues Harris (2010, 193). If nations enter climate change negotiations only on the basis of self-interest, little will emerge; negotiations must be conducted also in terms of ethical principle. Human rights ethics is the most known, institutionalized and vivid form of world ethics. It provides a universal language with which to mobilize against the exclusionary, marginalizing, silencing languages of some systems of power. The Overview of UNDP’s 2007/8 Human Development Report on climate change thus included strong and repeated messages on ‘social justice and respect of human rights’ (p. 13). In contrast, the 11,000 word Overview of the World Bank’s 2010 World Development Report on climate change made no reference whatsoever to human rights; it repeatedly used instead the technocratic term ‘climate-­ smart’ (Gasper et al. 2013b). Such is the frequency nowadays of human rights language that a case of its complete absence testifies to fear of its forcefulness. What is its power? First, it conveys that where fundamental harm is being caused by human action, duties arise to protect, prevent, desist and compensate. The moral implication is not for merely a superogatory, optional beneficence. Harmers have an obligation to not participate in rights violations, and to desist and do their fair share to compensate, regardless of whether others are also doing their share; in the same way that, if others are robbing someone who cannot resist, one should decline to participate, and should seek to protect. Currently though, such robbery is being committed against future generations and against already born babies and children who will be alive in the later stages of the twenty-­ first century. Second, human rights is a cosmopolitan doctrine that takes the ethics discussions out of the insular warm nest of the nation. Instead of focusing on national units, and diverting us into endless disputes over the rights and blame that should accrue to particular nations, it leads us to focus on the violations of basic rights inflicted on many poor persons and to ask how to prevent this (cf. O’Brien et al. 2010). The attention to unjustifiable harm to individuals provides some of the moral force needed to

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t­ranscend the motivation to free-ride, something which a state-focused discussion fails to do (Harris 2010, 70–71). Third, the focus on individuals helps to address the inadequate attention that a framing in terms of national units gives to each of: the responsibilities of rich persons and rich agencies, not only rich states; the responsibilities also of the rich in the global South; and the difficulties of poor persons in the global North (Harris 2010; Leichenko and O’Brien 2008). Harris notes how these ethical inadequacies of a national framing undermine its motivational force; if rich consumers and polluters in the South too are not included in the moral and policy calculus around climate change the proposals will never achieve sufficient support in the North. Thus: ‘cosmopolitanism is more realistic than communitarian state-centred approaches to solving global problems. Because cosmopolitanism is [focused on] persons, it reveals the true locus of pollution causing climate change and the profound consequences of this pollution for billions of people’ (Harris 2010, 159). It points to duties for many agents in both rich and poor countries, not only for states in rich countries, and can thus be more effective; likewise because identification of duty-bearers amongst affluent persons and rich organizations in poor countries renders it fairer and more acceptable to rich countries too. Harris (2010, 160) suggests that: ‘States, rather than being the sole practical bearers or objects of cosmopolitan duties and rights, should instead be viewed more explicitly as facilitators of individual rights and duties’. States should find ways to steer and assist rich individuals and agents to do their duty with respect to poor persons; for example through appropriate taxes on climate-­ damaging luxury activities like air travel. 6.6.2  Insufficiency of a Classic Human Rights Formulation; Arguments for Global Insurance Arrangements Human rights based approaches can have weaknesses too. Sometimes these concern insufficient conversion of human rights principles and standards into tools of policy analysis, or choice of inappropriate tools. As we saw, the 2007–2008 Human Development Report differed radically from the 2010 World Development Report in its human rights-oriented language of diagnosis and critique. But it differed much less when it turned to policy design to mitigate and counter climate change (Gasper et  al. 2013b). It relied still on the conventional conceptualization of economic efficiency, which weights the desires of people in proportion to their

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­ urchasing power. It did this out of a feeling of urgent need to present a p policy package, but this then inevitably reflected the existing training and networks of its staff of predominantly economists, including the belief that nice outcomes can be achieved largely through market means similar to those that have contributed heavily to the problem; and out of a wish to maintain acceptance and respectability in relation to some powerful stakeholders. The weakness here is not inherent to a human rights approach; in principle, needed additional policy tools could be found or designed, although some of this work might require significant gestation periods. Some other possible limitations appear more deep-rooted, and call for innovation and partnerships to enrich a human rights approach. Some concern the frequent legalism of such an approach and its problematic degree of applicability for the climate change issue, given a focus on identifying specific duty-holders whose specific actions have demonstrably caused precisely identifiable damage to specified rights-holders. Others concern whether the human rights perspective sufficiently counteracts the predominant frames of the warm nest of the nation and the song of growth, and thus how strongly it counteracts the attention deficits and non-accidental silences in mainstream discussion. First, legalism. This is a strength of a human rights approach: it seeks to make basic rights enforceable. But a strategy of legal enforcement has pitfalls too: the huge costs and slow pace of seeking justice via the legal system; possible shrinking of attention to within national boundaries insofar as the legal systems are national; demobilization of popular movements if there is reliance purely on the legal system; and a consequent easy buying-­ off of campaigns that lack a broad mass-base (such as the one launched in international fora by the Republic of Maldives in 2009 regarding damage it suffers from global warming). Second, a focus on tort law, seeking to demonstrate exact damage done by party X to party Y, faces many difficulties. Victims of displacement through climate change have no legal protection since the causation is so indirect and complex. Strict liability by high-emitters for the damage they have caused to others, including in the period before global climate change and its impacts were well established, is arguably ethically appropriate, since the emitters have benefited from what brought harm to others, who are people much poorer than them; but it may be operationally unworkable, since to specify the harms (and the benefits) exactly is so difficult and it is too onerous to pursue all the lawsuits (Penz 2010, 166–167).

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Penz, Drydyk and Bose (2011) have constructed a complex ethics of displacement in relationship to investment projects. It asks whether a particular displacement is for good development or mal-development, as judged in terms of a set of principles which have become accepted in the international system over the past two generations, including: promotion of well-being and respect for equity, empowerment, and sustainability. It then highlights, refines and applies to these investment projects a series of implied rights of those affected: to receive good reasons; to share costs equitably and not accept victimization of particular groups through enforcement of disproportionate costs upon them; to share benefits equitably; and to participate in matters that strongly affect one (Drydyk 2012). Penz et al. think creatively about forms of compensation, which do not only have to be direct per person as in workmen’s compensation, but can often more feasibly occur via policies to help a locality, for example in support for adaptation, and also via general measures of empowerment.12 All this is harder to apply to climate change than to construction of dams or mines. Penz therefore takes a further step. To ‘improve the chances that justifiable responsibilities are actually met, and partly to deal with certain difficulties in the justification and realisation of compensation responsibilities, I add the category of “insurance responsibilities”. These refer to responsibilities to set up and participate in a global insurance scheme that meets the costs of climate change adaptation’ (Penz 2010, 158). We saw already from Cline the relevance of insurance arrangements to prepare for and share the risks of climate-related disasters, and, from the World Bank, their definite affordability. Penz’s work: explores various articulations of responsibilities [relevant to climate change], ranging from free movement responsibilities that require states to open their borders, to poverty alleviation responsibilities that require richer states to participate in significant global redistribution, to compensation responsibilities that require greenhouse gas emitting states to accept responsibility for harm done and to provide compensation, and finally to insurance responsibilities that require states to develop and participate in a global insurance scheme that pays compensation, while collecting premiums in accordance with each state’s greenhouse gas emissions. The last of these is recommended as the most satisfactory formulation of international ethical responsibilities to those coerced or harmed by climate change, providing compensation for adaptation, whether by migration or in situ adaptation … (Penz 2010, 151)

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This offers an operationalizable approach that adapts the model of workplace insurance. The insurance rationale covers preventive expenditures too, which are often the priority—paying for climate-proofing and preemptive adaptation, not only for hospitalization after heat-stroke. Penz proceeds to specify ‘do your fair share’ principles for initial levies to set-up the insurance fund. He talks in terms of the contributions of states, not persons. We have seen that such a formulation has ethical flaws; but Penz’s ethical logic runs in terms of the rights and duties of persons, for which he then seeks a practicable first operationalization. He moves beyond a conventional tort-law courts-centred treatment, to a global system of collective social security, as befits our global interconnectedness. Second-stage refinements (such as levies from air travel and taxes on financial speculation) are welcome but can follow later. Third, fulfilling this agenda requires a strong motivational basis. The traditional human rights perspective of the rights of the individual may not be enough. Not only are there relevant ethical principles besides human rights, such as principles of utility and due care (COMEST 2010), but a human rights approach in isolation may not fully counter the perspective on nations that supports feelings of separation and lack of connection to ‘the rest of the world’; nor does it address the song of growth, the myth that everything can be solved by more economic growth through which we will somehow escape the implications of ecological fragility and a finite globe. Rather than having an ontology of interconnectedness, some versions of rights thinking are ruggedly individualist and stress dignity alone. Besides sensitivity to dignity, we need awareness of human vulnerability and connectedness. A perspective of shared human security can provide the additional basis of perceptions and commitment required for both solidarity and enlightened self-interest, and thus for the sort of global insurance arrangements that Penz proposes.

6.7   Responses – III: Human Security Analysis I argued that we require ethical and policy languages that are widely recognizable and that can motivate and mobilize worldwide—a set of roles that human rights language plays well. It makes clear that robbery is occurring against already born children and future generations. But I have argued further that, for response to the challenge of climate change, human rights language while necessary is not sufficient (cf. Teitel 2011). We need to extend it into a bigger framework of human security thinking,

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which more fully conveys what is ‘human’—including vulnerability and mutual dependence, connection to future generations and dependence on a global ecology—and encourages us to consider diverse aspects of security and forms of insecurity and to identify ourselves as members of humankind understood as a ‘community of fate’. Human security analysis is a trans-disciplinary bridge-framework that provides a focused elaboration of human development thinking: it studies the diverse threats to fulfilment of all basic human needs, with sensitivity to the diverse perceptions of threat and need. Building on entitlements analysis (Sen 1981), it looks at the particular situations and priority vulnerabilities of particular groups and types of people, that arise through the intersection of many different factors. It tries to counter narrowly focused approaches that marginalize much human vulnerability.13 It grounds this focus on human vulnerability by a commitment to ‘the human rights that flow for every human being from basic human needs’ (Gasper, 2005: 241–242). By looking at the multiple intersecting forces and events—some of them extreme events—that shape any person’s life, this human security perspective enriches understanding and also, potentially, mutual sympathy and awareness of shared vulnerabilities, shared interests, and shared human identity (Gasper 2009a, 2014). Its concrete focus on the basics of decent human lives, including stability, peace and sufficiency for all, can contribute in promoting fellow-feeling and motivation for action. Its attention to the contingencies of life, including extreme events, establishes the need for insurance—including preemptive not only palliative. The concern for security is not a language of condescension; it is about ensuring that agents have the basic conditions needed to act and adapt independently.14 The human security framework thus supports essential bases for an effective climate change ethics: the feelings of, first, mutual sympathy, concern for others; second, shared human identity; and, third, shared fate (Gasper 2009a, 2013a). Of these the third, a perception of interdependence and shared interests, may be particularly important. Feelings of sympathy partly depend on feelings of shared identity and of shared fate; and feelings of identity are influenced by who does one feel interdependent with and thus feel as co-members of a community of fate. Dobson notes how awareness of interconnections in the global environment ‘thicken[s] the ties that bind us to “strangers”, [and] bring[s] these strangers “nearer” without having to rely on empathetically constructing them as surrogate neighbours…’ (Dobson 2006, 175–176).

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The human security framework has grown out of a concern for individual humans as objects of value and hence as priority foci in thinking about what ‘security’ activity should try to make secure. It has grown in addition from perception of the myriad interconnections between people and also between threats. One can call this latter perception ‘joined-up thinking’, which must partner the ‘joined-up feeling’, the concern and sharing of felt identity, that grows out of and sustains attention to human vulnerability and associated basic human rights (Gasper 2007a). Put more formally, human security thinking combines a normative ontology of the value of human persons, as in human rights work, and an explanatory ontology of interconnectedness. This provides the basis necessary for climate change ethics and public action.

6.8   Conclusion I have argued that responding adequately to climate change needs a global perspective that combines emphases on the dignity and worth of all people, worldwide, and on our co-membership in a finite, fragile, breakable and shared socio-ecology. I suggested that theorizing sustainable human development requires far more than the language of capabilities, functionings and freedoms to which human development analysis sometimes is reduced. It also requires human rights ethical principles and a human security perspective. Human security thinking directs attention to limits, interconnectedness, vulnerabilities and possible threats. Human rights language provides a robust assertion of the value of each person and the ethical wrongness of harm to others caused by systems of careless production and heedless luxury consumption. How far these can counteract toxic forms of nationalism, exclusivist group identity, consumerism, and the systems that drive them, and the temptations and compulsions more generally of self-absorption and self-­ idealization, that screen out uncomfortable issues and information, is an open question. A merit of human security thinking is that it provides a route into reflecting on these challenges and their expressions and causes, more than we find in much other work on human development and sustainability.15 There are no guarantees of progress, but human security analysis and human rights principles deserve our endorsement, advocacy and use.

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Notes 1. See Gasper (2007b) and Gasper (2008) on situating the capability approach as one strand amongst others in human development analysis. 2. Is the danger real? In addition to the global consensus-building processes represented by the IPCC and UNFCCC, Brown (2012) cites two surveys of expert opinion. First: “a 2009 study—published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States—polled 1,372 climate researchers and resulted in the following two conclusions. (1) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2) The relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers” (Anderegg et al. 2010). Second, Brown cites an even larger poll from 2009 which gave very similar results (reported in Doran and Zimmerman 2009). See also the statements from many national scientific associations, assembled by NASA at http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/, and the yet more emphatic findings from the IPCC (2014)’s review of the subsequent scientific literature worldwide. 3. For a picture of current temperature trends and projections, see Climate Action Tracker at http://climateactiontracker.org/global.html. Even the commitments made until now around the Paris 2015 Agreement are seriously insufficient to restrict temperature rise to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, the maximum supposedly safe increase. The 2°C figure is in reality demonstrably unsafe, in terms of normal criteria of reasonable risk for vulnerable groups (see e.g. Hansen et al. 2015). 4. ‘How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing’, said Chamberlain in reference to the dispute between Czechoslovakia and Nazi Germany (http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain; consulted 1 January 2015). 5. Simmel anticipated Hamilton’s insight: ‘money in its psychological form, as the absolute means and thus as the unifying point of innumerable sequences of purposes, possesses a significant relationship to the notion of God… The essence of the notion of God is that all diversities and contradictions in the world achieve a unity in him…’ (Simmel 1907: 254). 6. Hamilton cited a survey reported in http://www.independent.co.uk/ environment/climate-change/climate-scientists-its-time-for-planb-1221092.html. 7. See e.g. the websites of the Stockholm Environment Institute and CDM Watch, on maneuvers that were used to claim funds under the ‘Clean

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Development Mechanism’. Some projects, for example, deliberately included increased production of highly damaging emissions (e.g. HCFC-­ 22 and HFC-23), to be able to then claim credits for also including components that countered those emissions. 8. Similar exclusions typically arise in relation to cross-sector (/cross-­ disciplinary) and cross-national interactions. For example, the Stern Report had separate chapters on economic costs of climate change in rich countries and in poor countries, each based on an accumulation across different sectors of quantitative projections concerning impacts. It relatively neglected (1) the non-quantified effects such as political instability, (2) the interactions between sectors, such as the impacts of political instability, especially when that instability exceeds routine minor variation, and (3) the cross-over impacts on rich countries of instability in poor countries, especially outside the range that can be projected by quantitative analysis of past variation (Gasper 2013a). 9. As of around 2010 an average U.S. resident was responsible for emissions of 22 tonnes of CO2 per year, about 180 times as much as an average resident of Ethiopia (Davis and Caldeira 2010). 10. See e.g. Kasser et al. (2007). 11. I have earlier suggested that we ‘adopt the name “Human Development Approach” for the encompassing system of policy analysis, within which the capability approach is just part of the valuation apparatus. … The Human Development Approach [forms] an approach to explanation and to policy which uses this widened range of criteria, including the capability approach, in evaluation and to identify what is important to attend to in a policy framework. It also incorporates entitlements analysis, human security discourse and much human rights analysis as further components’ (Gasper 2008: 251). 12. ‘Recognizing the centrality of empowerment will enable climate ethics to interact more significantly with human security approaches, in which discussion of empowerment has been more prominent’ (Drydyk 2012: 20). 13. I have explored more fully elsewhere the elements and rationale of human security analysis with special reference to climate change: Gasper (2013b) and Gasper (2014). 14. The Global Environmental Change and Human Security research program (1999–2010) defined human security as where ‘individuals and communities have the options necessary to end, mitigate or [sufficiently] adapt to threats to their human, social and environmental rights; have the capacity and freedom to exercise these options; and actively participate in pursuing these options’ (http://www.gechs.org/human-security). 15. See e.g. Burgess et al. (2007), Gasper (2009a, 2013b, 2020), Mushakoji (2011), Sygna et al. (2013).

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Simmel, G. (1907). The Philosophy of Money (1978 English edition, trans. T. Bottomore & D. Frisby). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Stanton, E., & Ackerman, F. (2014). Climate Change and Global Equity. London: Anthem Press. Stern, N. (2007). The Economics of Climate Change – The Stern Review. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stern, N. (2010). A Blueprint for a Safer Planet – How We Can Save the World and Create Prosperity. London: Vintage Books. Sygna, L., O’Brien, K., & Wolf, J. (Eds.) (2013). A Changing Environment for Human Security: Transformative Approaches to Research, Policy and Action. Abingdon: Routledge. Teitel, R. (2011). Humanity’s Law. New York University Press. 999. UNDP (2007). Human Development Report 2007/2008: Fighting Climate Change. New York: United Nations Development Program. UNDP (2011). Human Development Report 2011. New  York: United Nations Development Program. Van Renswoude, J., vd Maesen, L., & Herrmann, P. (2012). Development toward Sustainability. The Hague: European Foundation for Social Quality. WHO (World Health Organization) (2002). The World Health Report 2002. Geneva: WHO. WHO (World Health Organization) (2014). Quantitative Risk Assessment of the Effects of Climate Change on Selected Causes of Death, 2030s and 2050s (S. Hales, S. Kovats, S. Lloyd, D. Campbell-Lendrum, Eds.). Geneva: WHO. World Bank (2010). World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank (2014). Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal. Washington, DC: World Bank.

CHAPTER 7

Conclusion: The Sustainable Development Goals and Capability and Human Security Analysis Andrew Crabtree and Des Gasper

One might be tempted to argue that the introduction of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 has decreased the importance given to capabilities and human security analysis, compared to their degrees of influence during the previous generation. We suggest rather that the SDGs could provide an important vehicle for incorporating insights from these partner approaches, as well as an important stimulus for their enrichment and elaboration in regard to sustainability.

A. Crabtree (*) Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] D. Gasper International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Crabtree (ed.), Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38905-5_7

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7.1   Origins, Criticisms and Developments The introduction of the Human Development Index in 1990 was in some ways a revolution; the HDI stood in strong contrast to the unitary goal of income as a measure (or indicator) of development. The 1994 Human Development Report placed a human security approach high on the agenda, highlighting the importance of systematic analyses of vulnerability, as essential element or partner of capability analyses (see e.g., O’Brien et al., 2010; Redclift & Grasso, 2013). The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) together with the publication of Sen’s Development as Freedom in 1999 and the World Bank’s 2000/1 Development Report Attacking Poverty and its huge associated Voices of the Poor study ushered in a period where the concept of multidimensional poverty became central to the development debate both academically and at the policy level. Within the capability approach, multidimensionality has been developed further with the introduction of the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index and the Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index. However, compared to all these it is clear that the SDGs, with their 17 goals (see Table 7.1) and no less than 169 targets, are much more encompassing than anything capability scholars have offered in practical assessments of human well-­being. We can note though a number of actual and potential complementarities. Dialogue, deliberation and public reasoning are central in the capabilities approach. Yet the HDI was decided top down by a small group of economists (amongst whom Sen played a central role). The MDGs were devised through a network of Northern government aid agencies linked via OECD and the World Bank. They were finalized somewhat haphazardly—sustainability was added at the last minute, for example— by a group of experts meeting in the basement of the United Nations in New  York (Fukuda-Parr, 2016). Correspondingly, there were many criticisms of the MDGs from academics, policy makers and NGOs concerning not only the goals’ number, aims, targets and indicators but also about the decision-making processes behind them. In contrast, whilst not perfect, the consultation and decision-making processes behind the SDGs have been more inclusive than anything else previously attempted on a global scale. The SDGs evolved through an enormous multi-year process actively involving all member-states of the UN and huge networks of civil society and business actors. This has been described in interesting detail in studies such as Dodds et  al. (2014), Dodds et al. (2017) and Kamau et al. (2018).1

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At the Rio+20 conference in 2012, countries extensively debated and finally approved the suggestion from Colombia and the group of partner governments it had brought together, to prepare a system of Sustainable Development Goals that would link and merge the traditionally separated global policy agendas for environment/sustainability and international development. The outcome of the conference was the document The Future We Want, which officially initiated the debate to specify SDGs. The process during the following three years, and indeed since 2009 when the Rio+20 conference was agreed, was distinctive in several ways. As implied already, the SDGs proposal came not from Northern government’s aid agencies or from elsewhere in dominant Northern government systems, nor from the UN Secretariat or the UN specialized agencies, but from a set of Southern governments who worked in partnership with some smaller developed countries and international civil society groupings and in consultation with reformist international business networks. While then led by the UN and national governments, the negotiation process was perhaps the most consultative and transparent in history. Directly following Rio+20, a global online forum was opened. Donoghue (2016: 4) speaks of “the remarkable process of global public consultation, conducted over the couple of years [2012–14] prior to the [2014–15 inter-­governmental negotiations] … unprecedented in its scale and breadth.” It involved governments, academics, business, NGOs and, in theory, anyone who had computer literacy and a computer (and knowledge that the process was going on). While, in practice, even this “crowdsourcing” left billions outside due to the digital and the knowledge divides (see Gellers, 2016), it was the most consultative such process ever. Kjørven (2016), the UNDP representative, records his surprise and pleasure at finding that this WorldWeWant2015 portal produced clear and useful patterns of suggestions. The Rio+20 conference materials had been published online as soon as they became available; the same practice was followed during the UN’s Open Working Group (OWG) of member states which prepared the SDGs plan during 18 months of discussions in 2013–14; and the OWG sessions were publicly webcast. Sharing in the OWG process and attending on the subsequent 2014–15 negotiations in the full General Assembly were numerous nongovernment network representatives. Their contributions became so normalized that, most unusually, in the final decision-making stage they were not asked to leave the meeting chamber (Dodds et al., 2017). Besides these features of process, in declared content too (Table 7.1) the SDGs are in several ways truly transformative. Firstly, they are sustain-

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Table 7.1  Sustainable Development Goals  •  Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere  • Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture  •  Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages  • Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all  •  Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls  •  Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all  •  Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all  • Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all  • Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation  •  Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries  •  Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable  •  Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns  •  Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts  • Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development  • Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss  • Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels  • Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development Source: UN (2015)

able development goals. They thus represent a long overdue conceptual change (Masson et al., Chap. 4 of this volume), away from short-term-ism and the calamitous obsession with GDP (a bad measure of even short-­ term net progress), steps which had not been made by the traditional development debate or even the HDI.  Secondly, the SDGs apply to all countries and, to a certain extent, the old division between developed and developing countries is brought into question. Thirdly, being officially endorsed by and applicable for 193 countries means that the SDGs’ policy reach is broader than anything seen before and that the Goals could dominate the international sustainable development discourse until at least 2030. Fourthly, given the variety of the set of goals, the SDGs engage people from vastly different disciplines, from both the natural and social

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sciences, and many different walks of life, including NGOs at ground level and, not least, schools. Fifthly, the broader involvement of societal actors in the formation of the SDGs and in the ongoing reporting and review procedures has meant that these actors continue to be involved. How far the wave of companies’ support for the SDGs, as a means of publicly demonstrating corporate social responsibility and polishing their ‘brand’, will bring more than ‘SDGs-washing’ (only cosmetic gestures and re-labelling, without serious modification of their activities) remains to be seen. However, the enormously higher public profile of the SDGs, and the expanded channels of public monitoring and ‘whistle-blowing’, mean that the chances of publicly embarrassing and commercially costly revelation of cosmetics-only hypocrisy are now higher. Sixthly, while there was a tendency to consider the MDGs in separate silos, ignoring their interconnectedness (Unterhalter, 2012), the SDGs have been designed to emphasize integration (Fukuda-Parr, 2016). In sum, if the goals are achieved, we will have a transformed world; never in recent history, for example, has responsible production and consumption (Goal 12) been in place. Making even large steps to realize these goals in 15 years would be unprecedented. The SDGs include much of what is desirable from capability and human security perspectives: the importance of human rights, an agenda for action including vulnerability reduction and a multidimensional, multisectoral approach with a stress on interconnections (see e.g. Köhler et al. 2012 for an extended discussion of desiderata in relation to human security). Where then does this leave the capability and human security approaches? Firstly, there is the role of critique. As Stewart (2015) has commented, the compatibility of the Goals with one another, as presently formulated and operationalized, is seriously open to question. It is far from clear how the goals relating to economic growth and sustainability can both be attained; indeed the SDGs assert that already rich countries too should continue growing, indefinitely. The introduction to this volume drew attention to this relative blindspot, even in Sen’s and Nussbuam’s work, that requires rethinking. It is within the scope of the capability approach to emphasize the quality of growth by bringing in concepts like Critical Natural Capital (see e.g. Chaps. 2 and 3 in this volume), green growth and green accounting.2 It is no surprise that when governments decide on goals, they do not endorse goals that they think entail reductions in their power, whether internationally or intra-nationally. Yet reaching the Sustainable Development Goals would sometimes require major changes in power and in economic

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and socio-cultural structures at a variety of levels. Such a recognition would imply that the Goals are insufficiently radical. They may be seen as still worthwhile but flawed steps that can be a useful phase in longer-term processes of change, including progressive evolution of perceptions and of global and national power relations. Such changes cannot happen in a single giant leap and are always far from guaranteed, but potentially the SDGs provide spaces and processes that can help us in progressing through the next phases (Gasper 2019). The evaluation of social structures can be given a central role within the capability approach. Structures of living together go beyond individual actions, implying that our evaluative space should not rest at only the level of the individual (Deneulin 2008; Biggeri and Ferranni, 2014; Crabtree, 2013; Ramirez 2016). Here there is a challenge to link the capability approach work to the human security approach’s emphasis on the collective fate of humanity. There is also a major question of how the Goals are translated into targets and indicators. Not surprisingly, despite the widespread consultations, strongly unequal power relations were involved and reflected in the formulation of the SDGs. Fukuda-Parr and McNeill (2019; see note 2) illustrate this with detailed analyses of the setting of targets and indicators for many of the Goals. As they show, much of the wording of the Goals’ targets is vague and thus the specific commitments that have to be made are unclear. For Goal 12, Sustainable Consumption and Production, the influence of the private sector has ensured that the goal concentrates on technical advances which, for example, reduce waste in production and in disposal (for further examples, see Crabtree Chap. 4 this volume). As Gasper et al. (2019) show, the overall thrust does nothing to propose that we, even in already very rich countries, should reduce or freeze our consumption. Consumption in itself is not accepted as a problem. The question that arises is whether or not the Goal in practice means essentially still unending economic growth, albeit with a green twist. Furthermore, there is concern about how the Goals will be interpreted at the national level. Goal 16, for example, calls for promoting peace, justice and strong institutions but Target 16.7, “Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels”, is vague enough for vastly different political regimes to assent to it. The explicit principle of national ownership, that leaves countries to autonomously interpret Goals and targets, and to select from and add to targets and indicators, may result sometimes in business as usual. But there is little alternative to this: nearly all countries are beyond the control of central committees

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of international lenders now, unlike in the MDGs era; and yet at the same time, power structures do evolve and change, as seen for example in recent decades even in a case like South Africa. The present volume has stressed the potential importance of deliberative processes for sustainable development. The capability approach is often unclear though as to what these processes should be (Garza-Vázquez and Deneulin, 2019). Crocker (2008, 2019a, b) has made important contributions in thinking about these issues. (See also, in contrast, Held et al. 2013 for lessons from a 12 country study of climate governance around the world.)3 There remains a further need to represent future generations within those envisaged dialogues. Despite the unusual breadth of the SDG consultation process, in the end it was inevitably at the UN member states level that the goals were decided. The SDG framework and agreement are explicit though about the scope for national-­level interpretation, adjustment, augmentation and prioritization. This provides a response to the criticisms that the goals are too vague or too standardized. Further though, as Biggeri and Ferrannini (2014) have explored, sustainable human development takes place for a very large part at the local level—meaning in relatively small and locally-specific contexts. Such local contexts have to be understood and taken into account if development is to occur. Talk of “global goals” and “national priorities” can ignore the local and much of what is most important to people. So far there may be relatively little involvement at local levels in the processes of SDGs interpretation, adjustment and application, though perhaps rather more in the monitoring and review processes. These are important issues to examine with a capability lens. This is linked to another issue, namely the variety of understandings of development. The human security and capabilities approaches acknowledge the importance of a plurality of values and an openness to diverse understandings of what it is to lead a meaningful life. Writers such as Sengupta (2019), Waldmüller and Rodrígues (2019) and Watene and Merino (2019) have pointed to the different understandings and relations to nature that “sustainable development” has in different societies and cultures and the importance of the voices of narratives on the margin, be they within countries, such as indigenous peoples, or at country level where concepts with indigenous origins become enshrined in constitutions. Thus, Ecuador and Bolivia drew on the concepts of Buen vivir / vivir bien (living well) which have roots in the world of Andean indigenous peoples. Here there is a spiritual understanding which sees the interconnectedness of humans and nature. One consequence of this was the enshrining of nature’s rights in law.

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Forms of both the capability and human security approaches may offer theoretical bases or partnership for such claims. This is plainly beyond what we could expect from the SDGs—not surprisingly, Goal 16 does not commit nations to a particular form of government, and Nussbaum’s project of establishing a framework for basic constitutional guarantees is outside the scope of the SDGs as such—but such theory can have implications for achieving the SDGs. Questions around whether or not love is central for justice (Honneth 1996, Nussbaum, 2013, Gasper and Comim 2019) are fundamental in Nussbaum’s work, and have implications for what is needed for intergenerational justice and sustainability. The theoretical foundations of both intra- and intergenerational justice must continue to be a central part of the work done in the capability and human security approaches, together with attention to how to apply such thinking in constitutions, law, policy, and evaluation (see Chap. 4 in  this volume and Holland 2014; Gomez et al. 2016). There are also avenues for further exploration which have received relatively little attention within the capability approach, but which are pressing for the SDGs. For example, it is estimated that two thirds of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2050, which relates to Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. Within the capability approach, P.B. Anand (2018) has encouraged thinking about the city in terms of promoting capabilities. This connects with Deneulin’s (2014) work on the “right to the city” and the idea of “just cities for life”. Deneulin points to four advantages of using the capability approach concerning rights to the city: The capability approach has developed numerous tools for the evaluation of people’s well-being, it stresses the interconnections between the various aspects of well-being of which it can also offer a structural evaluation and, furthermore, the capability approach’s stress on agency again emphasizes democratic pluralism and deliberation. It is clear too that these are themes the human security approach can illuminate. Given private transport’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, for example, it is crucial that people feel safe when travelling on public transport or cycling. If not, people who can afford them will still use energy intensive cars. Goal 11 relates to many of these issues but not in the context of rights which should be met now rather than only in 2030 or later. Compared with the HDI and the MDGs, the SDGs extend multidisciplinarity in so far as they engage both the natural and social sciences. The breaking down of silos is surely welcome. As this book has emphasized,

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there are fundamental linkages between natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities. We cannot understand what human development is about without drawing on the social sciences. For example, Nussbaum’s list of central capabilities and their linkages to human dignity and flourishing rests in part on the work of the object-relations psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s work on early childhood, attachment and play. This theme has been explored by her in her work on love and justice (Nussbaum, 2013; see too Honneth, 1996). We will be unable to establish whether development is sustainable or not without turning to the natural sciences. Yet, as earth system scientists point out the establishment of planetary boundaries is, in part, a normative issue (Rockström et al. 2009): How much harm has to be done before we call climate change dangerous? Whether capital is critical or not, is, in part, an ethical question. The theoretical linkages such as those between Natural Capital and human well-being or the ethics of sustainability indicators explored in this book are not yet made apparent in the SDGs.

7.2   Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security Looking forward, it is clear that the specific discussions brought up in this volume must continue to be investigated within the capability and human security approaches and that beneficial cross fertilizations must be encouraged. Chapter 2 by Dubois and Pelenc has provided a much needed, theorized integration into the capability approach of a strong sustainability conceptualized in terms of Critical Natural Capital. The strong sustainability approach is empirically employed more often within the capability approach, because a weak sustainability approach runs into the conversion problems Sen and others have outlined (Sen 1999). In particular, there have been a number of attempts to combine the Human Development Index (HDI), as a proxy for capabilities, with Ecological Footprint analysis (see Chap. 3). However, as Crabtree argues, composite indicators have their own problems in terms of convertibility. Indeed, using the HDI implies accepting that an increase in income can compensate for curtailed longevity. Hence, Crabtree argues for the employment of individual environmental indicators. It seems plausible that a human security approach will endorse both strong sustainability and individual environmental indicators and to that extent the arguments in Chaps. 2 and 3 are readily compatible with the later chapters on human security.

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Chapters 2 and 3 also provide a more theoretical grounding for the SDGs both in terms of the linkages between strong sustainability and in their relation to the normative issues surrounding SDG indicators. Masson et al. (Ch.4 above) view ecological concerns and ecosystem services as part of the core of sustainability (for further elucidation see Leßmann (2011)), but their chapter concentrates on examining the normative underpinnings of the sustainability concept, by developing elements of a theory of intergenerational justice on the basis of the capability approach. Here there are substantial differences between their version of intergenerational justice and that which might be forwarded by a human security approach. The latter would have a different formulation, to include rights and humanity as a whole within that which has to be sustained over time (see O’Brien et al. (2010), Gasper (2014b), St.Clair (2014)). The 1994 Human Development approaches’ introduction to human security concentrated on “freedom from”. Whilst a human security approach can also embrace “freedom to”, as for example does Wood (2003), it makes good sense that it should stress threats to humanity such as climate change, as discussed in this volume, or biodiversity loss, or the nitrogen cycle (see Crabtree, Chap. 3 above). Ethically, the exercise of freedoms that lead to such threats can be reasonably rejected by those who face the threats (Crabtree, Chap. 3 above). Such threats may correspondingly lead to cohesion among groups that are diverse either geographically or in terms of social status. The document that made a commitment to formulate SDGs was entitled “The Future We Want” (the outcome document of the UN Rio+20 conference in 2012). The SDG pledge is to ensure that “no-one is left behind”. As discussed earlier in this chapter, there are a number of authors working within the capability approach that are highly critical of oppressive social structures. This is in line with much human security thinking. But the human security approach also explores the ontology and identity of “humanity” as “a community of fate”, as a “we”. This is not ­incompatible with the capability approach. For example, in one of his formulations of the definition of development, Sen writes: Development has to be...concerned with enhancing the lives we lead and the freedoms we enjoy. Expanding the freedoms that we have reason to value not only makes our lives richer and more unfettered, but also allows us to be fuller social persons, exercising our own volitions and interacting with—and influencing—the world in which we live. (Sen 1999: 14–15)

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The use of the pronoun “we” here needs to be read not only as “we as individuals” but also as “humanity as a whole”—both present and future generations and is then compatible with the “we” in “the future we want”. We believe that the human security approach can helpfully influence capability analysis work in the direction of the inclusive “we”. At the same time, no doubt members of this family of ‘human development’ studies in the broad sense will also go in new directions and explore as yet uncharted territories that are important to human progress and sustainability (see e.g. the survey of many innovative National and Regional Human Development Reports that use human security concepts, in Gomez et al. 2013). We hope that the contributions in this volume help to given them some improved and better mutually integrated intellectual tools for that work.

Notes 1. See also Caballero (2016), Donoghue (2016), Kjørven (2016). 2. Amongst many sets of commentaries on the details of the SDGs, see e.g., two special sections in the Journal of Global Ethics, 2015, where Stewart’s piece appeared; P. van Bergeijk and R. van der Hoeven (eds. 2017), Sustainable Development Goals and Income Inequality, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar; and a special issue of the journal Global Policy (January 2019, vol. 10, S1) on ‘Knowledge and Politics in Setting and Measuring SDGs’. 3. “Held, Roger and Nag (2013) surveys climate change governance in twelve countries from three continents. As reported there, China and South Korea appear by far the most favorably impressive cases. Each employs its own particular multi-mode combination of governance forms that appears relatively effective for its own context. All the other country cases are, to varying extents, disquieting in terms of the implied ongoing and future damage to human rights, human security and human development from climate change, although most also contain pockets of progress.” (Gasper 2014a: 21). In particular, Held et al. and other authors find that “political democracy as such shows no clear favorable correlation with the governance capacities and moral imagination required for equitable and effective responses to climate change challenges. This is notably true for the more markedly ‘liberal’ and market-centered democracies of the United States, Canada, and Australia” (Gasper 2014a: 15).

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Index1

A Adjusted Net Savings (ANS), 12, 53, 56–57 Agency, 5 B Biodiversity, 29, 55–57, 60, 63–65, 67, 80, 178 Brundtland report, 79, 81 Buen vivir, 124, 125, 175 C Cities, 176 Climate, 14 Climate change, 9–15, 29, 30, 38, 55, 62, 63, 65, 81, 91, 103–129, 135–161, 177, 178, 179n1 Contractualism, 9, 53 Cost-benefit, 7, 146–148 Critical natural capital (CNC), 12, 13, 55, 66, 84, 173, 177

E Ecological Footprint (EF), 13, 56, 57, 68, 70, 177 Ecosystem services, 12, 30–43, 54, 178 F Feedback, 12, 30, 146, 152 Freedom are legitimate, 44n4 Future generations, 2, 9–11, 15, 23–26, 31–33, 41, 54, 79, 88–91, 93, 107, 119, 121–123, 125, 126, 139, 140, 148, 155, 159, 160, 175, 179 G Growth, 1, 3, 4, 15, 75, 77–80, 82, 86, 104, 118, 121, 136, 137, 139, 143–147, 150, 153, 157, 159, 173, 174

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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© The Author(s) 2020 A. Crabtree (ed.), Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38905-5

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H High-risk, 113 Human agency, 4, 91 Human Development Index (HDI), 3, 11, 13, 53, 170, 177 Human rights, 10, 14, 15, 120, 125–129, 131n20, 135–161, 173, 179n1 I Indicators, 12, 13, 38, 54, 81, 82, 85, 131n20, 170, 174, 177, 178 Intergenerational justice, 2, 6, 9, 13, 19, 20, 23, 27, 31, 32, 41, 43, 76, 77, 82, 85, 87–92, 94–96, 176, 178 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 147, 162n2 Intragenerational justice, 13, 19, 20, 33, 36–38, 41, 43, 85, 87–94, 96 L Laudato Si, 14, 120–125, 129 Legitimacy, 12, 13, 53, 68–70 Legitimate, 41, 45n9 Legitimate freedoms, 45n16, 51–71 Life-risk, 113 M Metric of justice, 87

N Needs, 2, 10, 28, 79, 82–84, 86, 91, 92, 95, 107, 108, 113, 123, 125, 138, 143, 147, 150, 154, 160, 161 Non-identity problem, 77, 92–94 P Planetary boundaries (PB), 13, 29, 53, 56, 61–66, 68–70, 137, 177 Precautionary principle, 104, 110–118, 120 Public deliberation, 21, 35, 41–42 R Renewable, 25, 55, 56, 58, 76 Risk, 23, 63, 64, 89, 105, 107–111, 113, 114, 118, 120, 123, 126–128 S Socio-ecology, 161 Strong sustainability, 11, 12, 23–33, 53–68, 177, 178 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 13, 15, 53, 56, 65–68, 70, 80, 81, 169–179 U Unrenewable, 93 W Weak sustainability, 11, 12, 20, 22, 25–26, 44n1, 53, 54, 56–57, 177