The Need For Economic Growth And Its Impact On Environmental Sustainability In Developing Countries Essay.

Write a report on the need for economic growth makes environmental sustainability unrealistic for developing countries.

Dependency on Non-Renewable Energy Sources and their Environmental Impact

Sustainable development is generally defined as the development that achieves its obligation without affecting the ability of the future generation to meet their basic needs for survival. There is mutual dependency in the areas of sustainability that are intertwined and they include: environment, economy and the society that we live in thus their effects overlap and when there is change in one of those key fields it will greatly have an impact on the other two (Sneddon, Howarth and Norgaard, 2006). This essay illustrates that developing countries have unsustainable environment due to industrialization and the urge of the countries to be more advanced in terms of technology. Similarly, this has led to ignorance of majority of the developing countries in terms of conserving environment and thus has focused their attention towards development and economic growth.

Generally, the non-renewable energy source has triggered more harm than good to our lovely environment and the entire ecosystem. The fossil fuels that are found in our ecosystem have a great impact to our environment when handled in appropriately include: natural gas, coal and petroleum (oil). The combusted fossil fuels contribute to a larger percentage of air pollution by producing CO2 that has impact on the living organisms occupying that locality when emitted to the ecosystem (Lotfalipour, Falahi and Ashena, 2010). Fossils fuels were formed from the living organisms that once lived in the ancient years and thus form part of the ecosystem. In the last few years’ majority of the developing countries have depended on the fossil fuels to propagate their economy to the level of the developed states thus in the process end up emitting greenhouse gases (Searchinger, et al. 2018). The effects of greenhouse gases have been widely witnessed and thus have impact to our environment leading to climatic changes and higher temperature making the developing countries to look for other renewable sources of energy that can be substituted instead. Similarly, department of Economic and Social Affairs in the UN emphasize that climatic change is one of the biggest challenges in the developing countries that needs to be tackled with before vision 2030.On the other hand, high temperatures lead to variable precipitations that is associated with the climatic changes which threatens the rate of food surplus in the developing countries. Accessibility to clean water is a necessity that every citizen of a country wishes nevertheless, they are more frequent floods that contaminate the waters and are all linked to the varying climatic changes. This effect impairs economic growth specifically in low income dependent countries. Nonetheless according to Paris Agreement in 2015, the international community has tried to set goals and mechanisms that will aid in tackling the climatic havocs thus by holding the increase in the global temperature to below 2 degrees that is above pre industrial levels. Seemingly, for these goals to be transformed to reality there must be a dramatic cut in the fossil fuels. Despite all the negative impacts that may result from the fossil fuels, larger percentage of African countries still have the notion that for their economic growth to raise they have to depend on the fossil fuels.

Importance of Renewable Energy Sources

On the other hand, renewable energy aids a majority of the developing countries by providing them with wind power, geothermal energy, biomass and solar energy thus helps to reduce the dependency on natural gas and oil (Kanagawa and Nakata, 2008).  It has come to the realization of the developing countries that investing on the renewable energy source is affordable and does not have any negative impact on the ecosystem as compared to the fossil fuels that greatly destroys the environment. Additionally, renewable energy is vital and beneficial when the developing countries invest in it since cost of transmission is low compared to the fossil fuels and can be transmitted to the local and rural remote areas with ease. Theirs has been interest in the renewable energy production and transmission in the recent years due to the environmental concern about air pollution and global warming thus the government officials have shifted to a renewable energy due its efficiency, reliability and reduced cost production cost. The interesting part is that renewable energy can be produced locally and thus be beneficial to the poor marginalized communities in the globe (Panwar, Kaushik and Kothari, 2011).  It reduces the level of poverty in most of the developing countries thus provides energy for creating employment and business. Theses imply that the renewable energy technology indirectly contributes in poverty alleviation by providing energy that can be used for space heating, lighting and cooking (Zhang, Parker and Kirkpatrick, 2008). Renewable energy source plays a major role in the field of education thus by providing the schools with electricity and reduces time wastage among the children to go fetch fuel from a distant location thus provides a ready solution by providing energy for lighting, cooking and heating (Xia and Xia, 2010).  Additionally, in the rural societies it reduces the health hazards that may emerge due to indoor air pollution by burning fuels. Additionally, in the health sector the renewable energy provides a power source to the refrigerators that aid in the storage of sterilize medical equipment’s and medicine. It also provides power source to the sewage services and fresh waters thus reducing the rate of infections.

Lastly, I reject the assumption of some individuals that renewable energy is expensive to plant by the developing countries. This source of energy is affordable by majority of the developing countries thus tend to adopt the mechanism and have the will to invest on it since it does not have any environmental hazards. When comparing the cost of production of fossil fuels and the renewable sources we tend to conclude that renewable source is cheap since it entails the use of resources that naturally exist like wind and solar thus converting potential energy to solar energy.

Industrial development plays a very fundamental role in the growth of the economy in countries like Taiwan province of China, Indonesia, China and Republic of Korea. Growth of the economy reduces the poverty levels of the low class groups in the country. Despite the fact, that industrialization enhances the growth of the economy and rises the living standards of the people it results to a significant number of havocs toward the ecosystem. Water pollution, air pollution, smog’s, oil spillage and acid are among the negative impacts of the rise of industries. Despite land and water being the basic natural resource for the survival of human beings in the globe, they are being threatened by the industrial sectors in the developing countries. In this case, some of the industries lack an appropriate sound pollution policy that will regulate the effect of sound pollution. In these end we get to know that there is need for the government to enact particular environmental policies to safeguard the environment (Low, 2016). The problem that is faced by majority of the developing countries is that less attention and focus has been converted on the environment protection thus the environmental a standards are not put into consideration or implemented thus pollution control techniques have not been developed.

Renewable Energy and Poverty Alleviation

Recycling and re use of products is good management practice in the developing countries since it aids in the coping with challenge of environmental pollution from the products like the plastic containers (Nnorom and Osibanjo, 2008). Recycling of products is an environmentally friendly measure thus cuts the cost of production enhancing a low capital investment in the local market sectors. Plastic containers or bags non bio - degradable thus cannot decay and can persist in the environment for a long period of time. They can cause environmental hazards by blocking sewage and drainage systems resulting to water flooding and water logging that may facilitate the spread of infections. Nevertheless, recycling of plastics is beneficial hence reduces the greenhouse gas emission and contributes to energy saving. Additionally, it provides a livelihood to the people by creation of employment and opportunities. Analysis state that the amount of plastic usage in developing countries is much lower compared to the industrialized countries. The developing countries tend to recycle their products due to the low labor cost, law that has been put in place to control the level of recycled products, low cost of transportation and there is also an innovative use of the scrapped materials that leads to low entry manufacturing cost (Reck and Graedel, 2012). Lastly, in developing countries the trend of collecting, sorting and recycling products is becoming a viable activity that is engaged by many people and thus is source of income to others.

On great perspective, recycling of products like plastic is beneficial since it helps to conserve the environment (Troschinetz and Mihelcic, 2009). On that aspect is strongly reject that notion that recycling of products has a negative impact to the ecosystem. It is fundamental that for human beings to stay in a clean, health and productive environment, regulatory measures must be put I place to making it practical.

In conclusion, economic growth makes environmental sustainability unrealistic in the developing thus the constraints of being faced by the developing countries on environmental sector can be dealt with adamantly or resolved with ease when the community is empowered on the need to have a sustainable environment and the appropriate measure that can be taken to achieve those goals (Sneddon, 2006). Moreover, the common forms of environmental damage in the current world is lack of clean water, municipal waste, deforestation and soil erosion that requires decision makers to input public policies that will ensure that there is a sustainable environment where there will be consequences when the regulatory measures have not been abided.                                   

References

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Lotfalipour, M. R., Falahi, M. A., & Ashena, M. (2010). Economic growth, CO2 emissions, and fossil fuels consumption in Iran. Energy, 35(12), 5115-5120

Low, P. (2016). International trade and the environment. UNISIA, (30), 95-99.

Nnorom, I. C., & Osibanjo, O. (2008). Overview of electronic waste (e-waste) management practices and legislations, and their poor applications in the developing countries. Resources, conservation and recycling, 52(6), 843-858.

Panwar, N. L., Kaushik, S. C., & Kothari, S. (2011). Role of renewable energy sources in environmental protection: a review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 15(3), 1513-152

Reck, B. K., & Graedel, T. E. (2012). Challenges in metal recycling. Science, 337(6095), 690-695.

Searchinger, T., Heimlich, R., Houghton, R. A., Dong, F., Elobeid, A., Fabiosa, J., ... & Yu, T. H. (2008). Use of US croplands for biofuels increases greenhouse gases through emissions from land-use change. Science, 319(5867), 1238-1240.

Sneddon, C., Howarth, R. B., & Norgaard, R. B. (2006). Sustainable development in a post-Brundtland world. Ecological economics, 57(2), 253-268.

Troschinetz, A. M., & Mihelcic, J. R. (2009). Sustainable recycling of municipal solid waste in developing countries. Waste management, 29(2), 915-923

Xia, X., & Xia, J. (2010, March). Evaluation of potential for developing renewable sources of energy to facilitate development in developing countries. In Power and Energy Engineering Conference (APPEEC), 2010 Asia-Pacific (pp. 1-3). IEEE.

Zhang, Y. F., Parker, D., & Kirkpatrick, C. (2008). Electricity sector reform in developing countries: an econometric assessment of the effects of privatization, competition and regulation. Journal of Regulatory Economics, 33(2), 159-178.