Climate Change and Sustainable Development: Realizing the Opportunity

Abstract

Manifold linkages exist between climate change and sustainable development. Although these are starting to receive attention in the climate exchange literature, the focus has typically been on examining sustainable development through a climate change lens, rather than vice versa. And there has been little systematic examination of how these linkages may be fostered in practice. This paper examines climate change through a sustainable development lens. To illustrate how this might change the approach to climate change issues, it reports on the findings of a panel of business, local government, and academic representatives in British Columbia, Canada, who were appointed to advise the provincial government on climate change policy. The panel found that sustainable development may offer a significantly more fruitful way to pursue climate policy goals than climate policy itself. The paper discusses subsequent climate change developments in the province and makes suggestions as how best to pursue such a sustainability approach in British Columbia and other jurisdictions.

Mainstreaming Climate in the Classroom: Teaching Climate Change Planning

“…This has a corollary in how climate is taught: should it be in stand-alone seminars? Or should a 'climate lens' (Robinson et al, 2006) be used in existing core classes, so that climate becomes another variable to be considered just like population projections, equity, or fiscal outcomes? This is a question we return to in our conclusions.…”

Climate change and sustainable development

“…Justifi ed pleas have been made to-instead, or also-address climate change from a sustainable development viewpoint (Robinson et al 2006). 10 Linkage of climate change to development policies will "make development more sustainable".…”

The Establishment and Application of Environment Sustainability Evaluation Indicators for Ecotourism Environments

“…Scholars have investigated ecological security regarding the aspects of ecological risk assessments [20,21], ecological health [22,23], ecological models [24,25], and indicator systems [26,27]. However, most extant ecological security studies only provide quantitative descriptions based on literature reviews without implementing quantitative methods or introducing innovative strategies.…”