Conceptual foundations and political debates

Endless debates over the past 15 years have been trying to make out the practical implications of the sustainability concept. Dozens of alternative definitions, hundreds of sustainability indicators and numerous criteria and implementation strategies have been proposed. The reason why it is difficult to define precise criteria for sustainability is that doing so involves value judgements. What would one consider sustainable? For whom? By whom? In what context?

Considering the widely diverging views about sustainability even within individual economic sectors (What is sustainable agriculture or sustainable forestry?), it will take a long time and much debate before consensus may emerge about its more specific definition and practical implica-tions. An important part of the problem is that the term is politically heavily loaded. It is widely used and often misused. This study is one attempt to examine sustainability in a national context, to apply the EISD to describe the current situation of Brazil and to explore future development options for the national energy system.

As nations have been exploring strategies to reach sustainable development, it has become evident that the emphasis on what is needed depends on the country’s level of development.

Developing countries are more concerned with

‘development’, and in particular with economic and social development, since major priorities include improving incomes and standards of living while achieving full satisfaction of basic needs and high levels of employment. Developed countries, which have reached industrialization and high living standards, emphasize ‘sustainability’, consequently their policies are formulated to stress the need to protect the environment. In a classic argument, developing countries see environmental restrictions as imposing constraints on their development that were not imposed on the developed countries as they went through the equivalent stages of the development process. Developed countries, in contrast, assert that the global character of environ-mental protection requires commitments from all

TABLE 1.1. ENERGY INDICATORS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT [1.7]

Social

Theme Sub-theme Energy indicator Components

Equity Accessibility SOC1 Share of households (or population) without electricity or commercial energy, or heavily dependent on non-commercial energy

Households (or population) without electricity or commercial energy, or heavily dependent on non-commercial energy Total number of households or population Affordability SOC2 Share of household income

spent on fuel and electricity

Household income spent on fuel and electricity

Household income (total and poorest 20%

of population) Disparities SOC3 Household energy use for

each income group and corresponding fuel mix

Energy use per household for each income group (quintiles)

Household income for each income group (quintiles)

Corresponding fuel mix for each income group (quintiles)

Health Safety SOC4 Accident fatalities per energy produced by fuel chain

Annual fatalities by fuel chain Annual energy produced Economic

Theme Sub-theme Energy indicator Components

Use and production patterns

Overall use ECO1 Energy use per capita Energy use (total primary energy supply, total final consumption and electricity use) Total population

Overall productivity

ECO2 Energy use per unit of GDP Energy use (total primary energy supply, total final consumption and electricity use) GDP

Supply efficiency ECO3 Efficiency of energy conversion and distribution

Losses in transformation systems including losses in electricity generation, transmission and distribution

Production ECO4 Reserves-to-production ratio Proven recoverable reserves Total energy production ECO5 Resources-to-production ratio Total estimated resources

Total energy production

End use ECO6 Industrial energy intensities Energy use in industrial sector and by manufacturing branch

Corresponding value added ECO7 Agricultural energy intensities Energy use in agricultural sector

Corresponding value added ECO8 Service/commercial energy

intensities

Energy use in service/commercial sector Corresponding value added

Economic

Theme Sub-theme Energy indicator Components

Use and production patterns

End use ECO9 Household energy intensities Energy use in households and by key end use

Number of households, floor area, persons per household, appliance ownership ECO10 Transport energy intensities Energy use in passenger travel and freight

sectors and by mode

Passenger-km travel and tonne-km freight and by mode

Diversification (fuel mix)

ECO11 Fuel shares in energy and electricity

Primary energy supply and final consumption, electricity generation and generating capacity by fuel type Total primary energy supply, total final consumption, total electricity generation and total generating capacity

ECO12 Non-carbon energy share in energy and electricity

Primary supply, electricity generation and generating capacity by non-carbon energy Total primary energy supply, total electricity generation and total generating capacity

ECO13 Renewable energy share in energy and electricity

Primary energy supply, final consumption and electricity generation and generating capacity by renewable energy

Total primary energy supply, total final consumption, total electricity generation and total generating capacity

Prices ECO14 End-use energy prices by fuel and by sector

Energy prices (with and without tax/

subsidy) Security Imports ECO15 Net energy import

dependence

Energy imports

Total primary energy supply Strategic fuel stocks ECO16 Stocks of critical fuels per

corresponding fuel consumption

Stocks of critical fuel (e.g. oil, gas) Critical fuel consumption

Environmental

Theme Sub-theme Energy indicator Components

Atmosphere Climate change ENV1 GHG emissions from energy production and use per capita and per unit of GDP

GHG emissions from energy production and use

Population and GDP Air quality ENV2 Ambient concentrations of air

pollutants in urban areas

Concentrations of pollutants in air ENV3 Air pollutant emissions from

energy systems

Air pollutant emissions Water Water quality ENV4 Contaminant discharges in

liquid effluents from energy systems including oil discharges

Contaminant discharges in liquid effluents TABLE 1.1. ENERGY INDICATORS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT [1.7] (cont.)

countries and in particular those undergoing intense industrialization processes.

Recent debates and practical programmes have focused increasingly on the complementary characteristics of development and sustainability.

Many unsustainable forms of resource use (fuelwood, water) and many practices harmful to human health and the environment (low quality fuel causing indoor air pollution and smog) are rooted in poverty, hence development would help alleviate poverty and simultaneously protect resources and nature. Further up the affluence ladder, there is ample evidence that societies pursuing environmen-tally benign development paths improve their overall welfare in ways that are superior to those following behind them on the environmental degradation–rehabilitation path. This is largely a function of affluence — having choices beyond survival and more income to spend on a higher quality of life.

Sustainability is an intriguing concept for scholars and politicians alike. Serious efforts have been made to quantify and/or model the economic–

non-economic balances that are struck in the process of charting a sustainable development course, taking into account national and regional differences. There is a general understanding that the term involves normative aspects and therefore

defies ‘objective’ scientific treatment. The reason is that the notion of sustainability goes beyond biophysical limits and the efficient allocation of scarce environmental resources. It involves choices about social, value and technological options made under circumstances characterized by severe uncer-tainties. It is worth reviewing here some of the well known efforts in this area.

The book The Limits to Growth [1.8] could be considered the opening salvo to the current round of debate on sustainability. Based on one of the first global models that tried to accommodate worldwide problems in the context of global economic integration, the book anticipates a rather bleak future for the world: scarcity, degradation, poverty, crisis and collapse. The core concept of the underlying model is exponential growth, considered to be the root of all evil. Subsequent studies refuted both the model and its conclusions by pointing to conceptual, methodological, economic and resource accounting problems. Nonetheless, the report triggered an enormous debate about economic growth and general socioeconomic development, and their implications for natural resources and the environment. Part of the debate focused on zero growth. Not surprisingly, zero growth was totally unacceptable to poor countries — in fact, to any country. A new concept has emerged in the debate Environmental

Theme Sub-theme Energy indicator Components

Land Soil quality ENV5 Soil area where acidification exceeds critical load

Affected soil area Critical load Forest ENV6 Rate of deforestation

attributed to energy use

Forest area at two different times Biomass utilization

Solid waste generation and management

ENV7 Ratio of solid waste

generation to units of energy produced

Amount of solid waste Energy produced ENV8 Ratio of solid waste properly

disposed of to total generated solid waste

Amount of solid waste properly disposed of Total amount of solid waste

ENV9 Ratio of solid radioactive waste to units of energy produced

Amount of radioactive waste (cumulative for a selected period of time)

Energy produced ENV10 Ratio of solid radioactive

waste awaiting disposal to total generated solid radioactive waste

Amount of radioactive waste awaiting disposal

Total volume of radioactive waste TABLE 1.1. ENERGY INDICATORS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT [1.7] (cont.)

based on the principle that development (and economic growth as its basis) is indispensable but must be environmentally benign.

Hussen [1.9] examines three more recent conceptual approaches to defining sustainable development (Hartwick–Solow, ecological econom-ics and safe minimum standards) and finds several common features: recognition of biophysical limits, the desirability of sustainable development, the non-declining total (natural and human) capital stock and the importance of efficiency and equity criteria. The two main issues on which these sustain-ability concepts diverge are the relationship between natural and human capital (considered to be substitutes by the Hartwick–Solow approach but thought of as complements by the ecological economics and safe minimum standards approaches) and the relative importance of equity and efficiency (the Hartwick–Solow approach focuses on intertemporal efficiency, ecological economics emphasizes intergenerational equity, while the safe minimum standards approach is centred on irreversible environmental implica-tions). The Hartwick–Solow approach gives more credit to technological innovation for embarking on environmentally benign development paths, while the safe minimum standards approach tends to discount this proposition. There are various corollaries for sustainable energy development, the most important being that if one takes the verbatim interpretation of non-declining natural capital proposed by the ecological economics position, the use of non-renewable energy sources is problematic until their technologically feasible and economically affordable replacements from renewable sources are demonstrated.

But even if one disregards the normative aspects, it is impossible to define absolute criteria for sustainability. One of the key points in the debate concerns the difference between what economists call ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ sustainability.

The fundamental criterion for weak sustainability is that the total amount of capital (natural and social) available to any generation should be non-declining, whereas the principal criterion for strong sustaina-bility is more restrictive: the total amount of natural capital must not decline over time. (The implica-tions for sustainable energy are the same as those under the Hartwick–Solow versus ecological economics approaches above.) Neumayer [1.10]

presents an in-depth analysis of the conceptual foundations of the two sustainability paradigms (neoclassical versus ecological economics), the key

difference between the two sustainability definitions (substitutability of natural capital, especially non-renewable resources), the analytical and policy making circumstances (risks, uncer-tainties, ignorance), and the attempts to measure sustainability (indicators ranging from the Hartwick rule concerning genuine savings on the weak sustainability side to the physical measures of sustainability standards and gaps in the strong sustainability realm).

Neumayer’s key conclusions include the following: Science cannot unambiguously support either paradigm, because they differ fundamentally in their presumptions about future possibilities for substitution and technological development. The future, in turn, is inherently uncertain. A disaggre-gated approach towards natural capital is required because some forms of natural capital are more compatible with the weak sustainability definition (natural resources as input to the production of goods and services), while other forms are more congruent with the strong sustainability assumption (natural capital as pollution absorber and neutralizer, and provider of direct utility). A somewhat simplified conclusion of this treatise for