At the beginning of August, exactly on the 13th, humanity began to use more natural resources than the planet can replenish for the year 2015, the unfortunately increasingly famous Overshoot Day. It means that we have entered the planetary “overdraft”; and the interest is already very visible. In January of this year, the Stockholm Resilience Center updated its accounting of Limits of the Planet – nine limits of the planetary ecosystem that signal profound environmental changes, radically affecting human well-being. According to the researchers, of the nine defined limits, four have already been transgressed: climate change, loss of biodiversity, changes in land use and the biological cycles of phosphorus and nitrogen. Their conclusions corroborate the latest IPCC report, in which scientists point out that the warming of the atmosphere and oceans is unequivocal, and that an average global temperature increase of more than 2°C is inevitable if the current emissions trajectory continues.
That one one way trip to Mars is looking more attractive now, isn't it?
Despite this far from pleasant scenario, we see two very emblematic international political movements in favor of overcoming the problems highlighted. The first, which already has greater visibility, and which will be discussed here in greater depth later, is the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (or COP 21 – the UN has never been very good at easy to remember names), which will take place in Paris at the end of the year. But another major advance that we will have from the end of this month – and which, up until now, has had much less publicity than it deserves – is the approval of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations General Assembly.
The SDGs, possibly the most tangible outcome of Rio+20, is the enhanced continuation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs had a clear state agenda of eradicating poverty and significantly improving a range of social issues that would hinder global human development, especially in countries with fewer resources, such as universal primary education, gender equality and reducing child mortality. With an almost exclusively social focus, the MDGs have been highly successful in many developing countries, including the United States itself. Brazil. A reduction of global poverty over the past 25 years is perceived as a great victory for the development of the post-Cold War world.
Global poverty cut nearly in half in the past 25 years – Hooray! (The Economist, 2013)
As the MDG mandate comes to an end this year, the SDGs come into play with two major differences, expansions that address criticisms constantly received by the previous agenda. The first concerns the “subjects” of this agenda. Unlike what happened in 2000, the SDGs have been constructed not only by the member countries of the United Nations, but also by a whole range of representatives of civil society – NGOs, companies, associations, social movements, etc. More than that, the goals themselves were designed to be met by these actors. This means that responsibility for global development is no longer just a monopoly of state action; rather, it is a sum of individual actions, leading to collective action. The progress of the people, for the people. This is the decentralization of development.
This means that, in addition to public policies motivated and designed to achieve these goals, we will have more targeted advocacy from NGOs in favor of the same goal; business strategies that attempt to combine their profits with the socio-environmental return to society; and social mobilization that joins forces and does not dissonantly oppose the voices of other actors. By universally agreeing on the same goals, it is expected that actors can move in the same direction, at the same pace – given that we all share the same environment, this planet.
The other fundamental difference is the expansion of what is understood as development. Now, not only social factors, but also environmental, economic, governance/institutional and partnership factors will be measured and managed (and, as a bonus, taking down the simplistic concept of the triple bottom line; although it does not consider cultural or other criteria). This expansion in the concept of development, adding “sustainable” to it, aims precisely to address the very worrying scenario highlighted at the beginning of this text. Specific objectives for water resources, biodiversity, oceans, cities and sustainable consumption are ways of identifying paths for at least the next 15 years. Decisively changing business as usual, while preserving and expanding, at the same time, the social gains of recent decades. In other words, below the planetary environmental “ceiling”, but beyond the global social base.
Homer Simpson was right – aim for the donut!
But of course the process and outcome of the SDGs are not without criticism. To begin with, we are talking about 17 goals, an incredible 169 targets and countless indicators for these targets. The management of these indicators, globally, nationally, locally and corporately, is, a priori, a great challenge. Paradoxically, there is criticism for the “narrowing” of the vision of sustainable development to only these themes, or in how these topics are being addressed, and not to many others who could have greater representation. Furthermore, we return to the old impasse of different capabilities in which developed and developed countries would have to fulfill what is expected to be a global development agenda – that is, if a very ambitious goal were set, it would, in fact, be a barrier to poorer countries; if something more lenient were set, it would fall short of what the planet needs. Now, the very quantification of social and environmental criteria is viewed with disbelief by groups that accuse the SDGs of being a strategy for incorporating ecological discourse into the international capitalist system, “objectifying” our bodies and our land.
The new Discord stickers for the next 15 years
The ambition of a global agenda would not come about without the support of other opposing positions; it would be unthinkable if everyone actually agreed. But I return to the size of our gap, to the bold red letters that point to our debt to the Earth, to justify an agenda with this ambition, scope and speed. In fact, we are already several decades behind. And even if we imagine the most successful scenario, of fully meeting all the goals and targets, there is still work to be done. The first Overshoot Day happened in 1970, 45 years ago. But it is coming sooner and sooner.
There is no bank account that can handle it.
