Environmental sustainability : a consumption approach / Raghbendra Jha and K.V. Bhanu Murthy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jha, Raghbendra.

Contributor:

Murthy, K. V. Bhanu, 1951-

Series:

Routledge explorations in environmental economics ; 5.

Routledge explorations in environmental economics ; 5

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sustainable development.

Consumption (Economics).

Physical Description:

xvi, 235 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2006.

Summary:

With globalisation fast becoming an irreversible process, it is necessary to pay increased attention to the implications for environmental sustainability. Some commentators have uncritically assumed that globalisation would result in all-round prosperity whereas the opposing view holds that in order to sustain growth and consumption, a certain threshold level of per capita income should be attained - the so-called Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) argument. This argument implies that rapid economic growth in many developing countries should be environmentally unsustainable.

Environmental Sustainability addresses this dichotomy and articulates a notion of consumption sustainability that is both universal and pertains to the indefinite future. Additionally, it emphasises the importance of addressing a broad spectrum of sources of environmental degradation and relates this measure to an index of economic achievement more complete than per capita income. The EKC conclusion is examined and is demonstrated to be untenable, it is argued that there is scope to permit developing countries to target high rates of economic growth and that lowering rich countries' consumption would be consistent with environmental sustainability.

Jha and Murthy critique the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI), which has been proposed as a measure of the overall state of the environment, and advance an alternative methodology for computing environmental sustainability. The authors empirically substantiate the proposition that a certain type of development in the presently high-income countries is primarily responsible for global environmental degradation. Several policy conclusions for global environmental management are also advanced.

Contents:

Global disparity and environmental sustainability

Consumption and sustainable development : an overview

Methodological issues : a review

Global environmental degradation : concept and methodology of measurement

Sustainability : behavior, property rights and economic growth

An inverse global environmental Kuznets curve

A critique of the environmental sustainability index

A consumption-based human development index and the global environmental Kuznets curve

Political economy of global environmental governance

Issues in global environmental management

Summary and conclusions.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [209]-230) and index.

ISBN:

0415363462

0203014391

OCLC:

61651673

Publisher Number:

9780415363464

Online:

Publisher description