Citation:

Campbell, D E. GLOBAL TRANSITION TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. Presented at IV Biennial International Workshop in Advances in Energy Studies: Ecology Energy Issues in Latin America, Campinas, San Paulo, Brazil, June 15, 2004.

Description:

Environmental accounting using emergy is a tool for evaluating development and determining what is sustainable. Global sustainable development means that all nations will become better places for their inhabitants to live. Development follows a cycle of change from rapid growth through a climax to descent and finally to a world where a lower energy steady state will prevail. Different management strategies are required to optimize human well being in each of these stages. In the early years of the 21st century, the world appears to be approaching a climax in this development cycle, which has been in a growth phase supported by fossil fuel use for the past 150 years. Strategies promoting mutual cooperation and increased efficiency in the use of energy bring about the highest levels of well being (maximum empower) in times with high available energy (exergy). The renewable emergy production of the earth, at least, must be equal to the use of renewable emergy in the global economy to prolong this climax state. Environmental accounting using emergy provides the means to document the debt that the economic system owes to the environment. These liabilities must be paid off or at least serviced, if the nations of the world are to make the transition to sustainable development. For some countries sustainable development will mean additional growth and energy use, but for others it will mean a decline in energy use and improvements in conservation and design. Even the countries that continue to grow should pay their debts to the environment as they go, thus they will avoid many of the environmental problems the developed nations face today. Balance sheets using emergy-based monetary units provide the means to directly determine the solvency of our national and global economic systems including the ability to pay debts owed to the environment for its unpaid contributions to economic production and welfare. A second important factor in promoting global sustainable development is the equity of exchange among nations. These exchanges must be perceived as fair or the injustice will increase the probability of discord. Fairness in economic and social interactions will promote peace among nations. Emergy accounting provides a method to determine whether an international trade is equitable. Often the money exchanged will balance but the real wealth exchanged as measured by emergy is unbalanced. If world trade is checked to ensure an emergy balance, governments will be better able to determine if their relations with other nations are fair.

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