The 2030 Agenda calls for a change in thinking in order to implement sustainable development goals (SDGs) and targets as a system. To achieve this goal, the 2030 Agenda established five pillars ("5 Ps"): people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership. Here, we present a classification of these SDGs and their targets based on the five pillars. Our aim is to improve our understanding of interactions by assessing whether potential synergies and trade-offs are related to the classification of the targets. We surveyed 30 people and asked them to associate the content of target labels with the pillars. We classified SDG and targets according to an original quantification system. We determined whether the interactions were linked to similar or different classifications of the targets. We observed that the more similar the targets were in terms of classification, the more positive the interactions. We also noted that synergies exist between targets of different classifications. Our findings are useful for applying a systemic approach for policy coherence in sustainability analysis.
This article asks through what processes and for which interests the emerging Vietnamese climate change strategy is being designed, and if, ultimately, it is likely or not to be effective in the face of the looming threat. Through a review of an emerging body of literature and field observations, the paper finds the strategy partial and problematic in several ways. Its technocratic process prevents a pluralist representation of interests, obfuscating and perpetuating sectorial ones, at the expense of a more transparent and democratic resource allocation. The strategy therefore reflects and reinforces existing power relations in both politics and production. It feeds into a business-as-usual complacency, protecting national and international interests vested in unchallenged continuity, even when considering post-carbon technological fixes, which largely serve to expand capital accumulation opportunities. The article concludes that the national climate change strategy provides an illusion of intervention and security, but largely fails to identify and mitigate the underlying causes of climate change, or to lay the ground for a robust mid- and long-term adaptation strategy that can cope with yet unknown levels of climatic and other structural changes.
This article presents a critique of Vietnam's agricultural modernization in the context of its post‐socialist transition and the emerging climate crisis. Agricultural modernization has led to impressive rates of wealth creation that have pulled many Vietnamese out of poverty and food insecurity over the past two decades. However, the model's own logic of accumulation has also made the country increasingly reliant on complex processes and has locked in various technological path dependencies. These include energy‐ and input‐intensive production, engineered landscapes, reduced agro‐biodiversity, and weakened social networks, knowledge and skills. As a result, Vietnam is becoming more sensitive and less able to adapt to structural shocks, notably that of climate change. Furthermore, and crucially, the post‐socialist transition since the launch of Đổi mới (market reform) has given rise to a political economy with dominant interests increasingly vested in the continuity of this modernization model. The article argues that it is this new dynamics of class and state–society relations that now represents the main obstacle to the development of credible solutions to the climate crisis.
ABSTRACT. Since the 1980s, Viet Nam has achieved rapid economic growth and greatly increased food production and security. Those results are based, however, on a model of industrial agriculture that has inherent social and environmental limitations and increasingly faces the structural constraints of climate change. This article questions industrial agriculture, in general and through the case of Viet Nam, and its ability to sustain outputs and food security through the emerging crisis. It argues that while agroindustrial technologies and commodification are making the country particularly vulnerable to the imprecise and shifting context of a multifaceted crisis, the dominant response of the green economy, in Viet Nam as elsewhere, rests on unsubstantiated technological and institutional assumptions. Unchanged, such strategy will most likely lead to the collapse of Vietnamese agricultural production and a surge of food insecurity. In such a strategic vacuum, the article explores how agroecology offers a viable alternative, in parallel with the organization of production, distribution, and consumption through principles of food sovereignty.
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