Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report

• Author: Robin Kundis Craig
• Pages: 1-19

1

Chapter 1

Climate Change, Sustainable

Development, and the IPCC’s

Fifth Assessment Report

Robin Kundis Craig

What does climate change mean for sustainable development?

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

(IPCC) in its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5),1 climate change

threatens sustainable development goals. e AR5 represents a rst strong

international consensus caution that failure to address climate change may

well u ndermine the pursuit of sustainable development. As such, the AR5

subtly underscores t he critical importance of a functional environment and

ecological systems to human thriving— and perhaps e ven to human sur-

vival—a reality that sustainable development in practice often ignores.

I. Three Models of Sustainable Development and the

Role of the Environment

Sustainable development emerged at about the same time as scientists were

becoming convinced that climate change was occurring and that humans

had something to do with it. While the International Union for the Conser-

vation of Nature (IUCN) dates t he concept of sustainable development to

its 1969 mandate and t he 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human

1. As used in this volume, the “Fifth Assessment Report” and “AR5” refer collectively to the four reports

that the IPCC published in 2013 and 2014: I P  C C,

C C 2013: T P S B (2013), available at https://www.ipcc.ch/

report/ar5/wg1/ [hereinafter 2013 IPCC P S R); I P

 C C, C C 2014: I, A,  V (2014),

available at https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/ [hereinafter 2014 IPCC A R];

I P  C C, C C 2014: M  C-

 C (2014), available at https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/ [hereinafter 2014 IPCC

M R]; and I P  C C, C C

2014: S R (2014), available at https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/ [hereinafter 2014

IPCC S R].

2 Contemporary Issues in Climate Change Law & Policy:

Environment (Stockholm),2 the World Commission on Environment and

Development’s (also known a s the Brundtland Commission’s) 1987 report,

Our Common Future, is generally credited with launching sustainable devel-

opment as an international governance goal.3 Indeed, that report provided

the most common denition of sustainable development: “Development that

meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future

generations to meet their own needs.”4 Sustainable development goals were

further operationalized in 1992 at the “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro,

Brazil, particula rly in Agenda 21.5 Sustainable development also became one

of the United Nations’ eight Millennium Development Goals in 2000.6

Sustainable development has been dened and redened a number of

times in a number of ways.7 Literally, a s susta inable development textbook

author Jennifer Elliott has noted, “sustainable development refers to main-

taining development over time.”8 More importantly, pursuers of sustainable

development make dierent assumptions about the relationship between

human beings and the environment.9 Such diering assumptions are evident

in the three models of sustainable development—the “three pillars” model,

the “interlocking circles” model, and the “nested circles” model—all three of

which describe the relationships among society and social welfare, the envi-

ronment, and economic development.10

e t hree pillars model (Figure 1) “conrm[s] the need to consider the

social, ecological and economic arenas together and equally” to achieve

sustainable development, but it does not clearly depict the interconnec-

tions a mong the three pillars.11 In particular, the three pilla rs model does

not acknowledge that economic development and social well-being, as well

as sustainable development, depend upon well-functioning ecosystems that

can continue to deliver goods and services. In other words, the three pilla rs

2. W.M. A, IUCN, T W C U, T F  S: R-

T E  D   T- C 1 (May 2006), available

at http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/iucn_future_of_sustanability.pdf.

3. J A. E, A I  S D 8 (4th ed. 2013); see also

A, supra note 2, at 1 (also noting the Brundtland Commission and the Earth Summit).

4. U.N. World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, U.N. Doc.

A/42/427, Annex (1987), available at http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf.

5. E, supra note 3, at 9.

6. Id. at 10, 12-14 tbl. 1.2.

7. Id. at 16. Even the IUCN has admitted that the Brundtland Commission’s denition was “vague”

and that “the denition of sustainable development evolved” over time. A, supra note 2, at 1-2.

8. E, supra note 3, at 16.

9. Id. at 18 (quoting K. L  . ., G S D   T-F

C 9 (2000)).

10. See A, supra note 2, at 2 g. 1 (presenting the three models).

11. Id. at 20-21.