The mantra of sustainable development is well established in world politics, but there are still uncertainties as to its practical definition according to the organizers of the meeting ‘State-of-the-Art Sustainability Assessment: Challenges and Opportunities’, to be held on October 30, at 3 pm, in the Auditorium of USP’s Institute of Oceanography (IO).

The meeting will explore some of the principles of sustainability assessment, with emphasis on the challenges and opportunities that arise for regulators, entrepreneurs and civil society regarding the effective application of the principles of sustainable development. The exhibitors will be Angus Morrison-Saunders and Jenny Pope, both from Murdoch University, Australia. Luis Enrique Sanchez , from USP’s Polytechnic School (POLI), will be the commentator. Coordination will be in charge of Pedro Jacobi, coordinator of IEA’s Environment and Society Research Group.

According to the researchers, the evaluation of sustainability - defined as a process to guide decision-making for sustainability - presents a way to understand the characteristics of sustainability of new development proposals: ‘Although there is no legislation, there is a significant assimilation of the sustainability context globally and especially in the development sector, as are mining and resource development’.

Open to the public, the meeting will be broadcast live at www.iea.usp.br/aovivo.

Photos of the event

Brazilian historiography on the environment was structured as a field of thought and research in the late 20^th century. According to Silvia Helena Zanirato, member of IEA Research Group and professor of Environmental Management at USP’s School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH), the challenges posed by major social and environmental changes have forced History, as a science, to find new explanatory arguments for the historically acquired habits of social players in their interaction with the physical environment.

“The environment is essentially an interdisciplinary field of study and only the sum total of knowledge can help us overcome the environmental crisis. History’s role, in this context, is to seek to understand and explain the processes that have contributed to this crisis, which we know is based on the production and consumption system of the Modern Age,” says Zanirato, one of the coordinators of the seminar, who will take part in the debates on “Historical Knowledge and the Environment: Epistemological Considerations.”

She says that the academy has not been able to raise the awareness of the public at large of the severity of the socio-environmental problem. “More than discuss, we need to present other possibilities involving consumer habits, lifestyles and the means to move towards a less impacting society. I am aligned with the thought of Mercedes Pardo, for whom nature conservation condition is not mainly physical, but rather cultural,” explains Zanirato.

“Undeniably, after World War II, with the vertiginous expansion of the mass consumer society, the perception and a growing awareness of a complex interconnected phenomenon of global dimensions began to take shape. The problems intrigued historians, policy makers, scientists, artists and the general population,” says Paulo Henrique Martinez, a professor at Paulista State University (UNESP) in Assis, who will also be at the seminar.

Such phenomena, says Martinez, emerged in the industrialized countries of the northern hemisphere in the form of pollution, destruction of ecosystems and threats of extinction of the local fauna and flora. In poor countries, environmental problems arose in the form of epidemics, accelerated deforestation and degradation of environmental health in rural and urban areas – involving water resources and landfills, in particular – he says.

For Martinez, environmental history opens communication channels and creates situations for interdisciplinary dialogue, e.g., in studies of urbanization, family farming and public policies. However, interdisciplinary research still needs to go further. “We talk insistently about interdisciplinary research, but operationally we still have a long way to go. Everything remains more in the realm of rhetoric than of effective and concrete experiences and practices,” he believes.

For Janes Jorge, a professor at UNIFESP, Brazilian historiography maintains a constant dialogue with other areas of knowledge and an intense debate about the place that historical production occupies in thinking about the environment. Yet, there is still plenty to do in environmental history research and in the dissemination of the knowledge produced in this field, she says.

“I believe that public policies concerning water, waste, biodiversity, climate change and other environmental issues must converse with scientific knowledge. But the policies are still way too timid for the scale of the problem,” says Jorge.

Besides Zanirato, Martinez and Jorge, the seminar will be attended by Roger Domenech Collacios (UNESP), Dora Shellard Correa (UNIFIEO), Nelson Aprobato Filho (USP) and José Jonas Almeida (USP).

Clique aqui para a versão em Português

Professor Isabella Anguelovski has been dedicated to researching the interface between urban climate policies and planning, social inequality, development, environmental inequalities, and green gentrification. She is among the most cited scientists in the world (among the 2% most cited) in the field of urban studies and planning.

In this lecture, she will present her most recent research on the theme of environmental and climate justice in the context of uneven urban development and the greening of cities.

Anguelovski, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), leads the BCNUEJ - Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice & Sustainability - and will be at the University of São Paulo (USP) in July as a Visiting Researcher in the Graduate Program in Environmental Science (PROCAM) within the scope of the CAPESP-Print Program.

Opening:

Ana Sanches (USP's School of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities, and Pólis Institute)

Presenter:

Isabella Anguelovski (Autonomous University of Barcelona)

Mediator:

Pedro Henrique Campello Torres (IEA)

Free and public event | No registration required
(*) Online and on-site event | No attendance certification will be provided
The event will be held in English and there will be no simultaneous translation into Portuguese | Live transmission at http://www.iea.usp.br/aovivo

Organization

IEA's Environment and Society Research Group

Support

Graduate Program in Environmental Science (PROCAM-USP)
Pólis Institute

Titled 'Prosperidade sem crescimento', a literal translation of the original, but subtitled 'Vida boa em um planeta finito' ('A good life on a finite planet'), the Brazilian edition is published by the Planeta Sustentável initiative (São Paulo: Editora Planeta Sustentável, 314 p.), which organized the event together with the IEA’s Society and the Environment Research Group.

In addition to Jackson, the event will be attended by Samuel de Abreu Pessôa, professor at FGV-RJ, and Ricardo Abramovay, professor at FEA and at USP’s Institute of Institutional Relations. The encounter will be mediated by Pedro Jacobi, coordinator of the IEA’s Research Group on Society and the Environment.

The book

'Prosperity without Growth' is a scathing critique of how natural resources are being used by contemporary society, driven by increasing levels of consumption and the imperative of economic growth.

According to Jackson, this model has led to a serious ecological and economic crisis, resulted in an uneven distribution of its accrued benefits, and revealed itself incapable to bring about prosperity. That is why Gross Domestic Product (GDP) should not be used as a benchmark for the welfare and happiness, says the author. Likewise, financial sustainability should be considered in tandem with environmental sustainability, to which it is closely linked.

The book not only questions the very pillars upon which global economic policy is grounded, highlighting its inherent unsustainability in the face of limited natural resources, but also presents proposals on how to make the transition to a sustainable economy where prosperity may be achieved without growth.

The author

Jackson is professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey, UK, director of the Sustainable Lifestyles Research Group (SLRG) at the same institution and a member of the Advisory Board of the Danish investment fund New Energy Solutions. He was economics commissioner on the Sustainable Development Commission of the United Kingdom, a job that culminated in “Prosperity without growth: economics for a finite planet.” Jackson served as a consultant to a number of government departments and agencies, including the European Environment Agency, the European Parliament and New Zealand’s Parliamentary Commission for the Environment. His studies focus on the relationships between lifestyle, well-being, social values and the environment.

The event is open to the public and will be held in room E-1, at FEA. It will be broadcast live over the web at www.iea.usp.br/aovivo.

Photos of the event

The debate has been organized by a partnership between two of IEA-USP’s research groups: Environment and Society, and Philosophy, History, and Sociology of Science and Technology. They had the support of the Center for Studies in Social and Environmental Governance of USP’s Institute for Energy and Environment (IEE). The meeting has comprised two roundtables, both mediated by Pedro Jacobi, coordinator of IEA’s Environment and Society Research Group.

The exhibitors were Wagner Ribeiro Costa, professor at USP’s Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH), Maurício de Carvalho Ramos, also a professor at FFLCH, Daniela Libório Di Sarno, professor at PUC-SP’s Faculty of Law and vice president of the Brazilian Institute of Urban Law (IBDU), Marcio Automare, organizational development analyst at the Institute of Land of the State of São Paulo (ITESP), and Susana Prizendt, coordinator of the Paulista Committee of the Permanent Campaign Against Pesticides and for Living.

The meeting has addressed the water problem from an interdisciplinary perspective, considering environmental, legal, socio-political, philosophical and food safety aspects. According to Jacobi, the idea was to reflect on the problem of water in the RMSP, but covering broader issues involving, among others, inequalities in access to water, changes in rainfall rates caused by the phenomenon of climate change, institutional barriers and the posture of the government in relation to the prevention and remediation of the problem.

Photos of the event

MEASURES OF THE STATE

The debate has been heated up by recent measures that have been studied and taken by the state government of São Paulo in order to try to circumvent the critical situation of the Cantareira reservoir, which currently operates at approximately 15 % of its capacity. Among these measures is the proposal of using water from the Paraíba do Sul River reservoirs to supply the RMSP. When asked about the matter, Ribeiro said that he does not consider the proposal timely, since the suggested river is also undergoing a situation of water stress.

Ribeiro has criticized the emergency works of the state government, which began on March 14 to pump the volume of "dead water" from the bottom of the dams that form the Cantareira reservoir. According to him, this means "to remove the last drop of a water that has been stored for 40 years, stagnant, whose quality is questionable due to the unknown factors associated with it."

Besides, he said that it was a risky move, which can lead to resource depletion in the region. “That is because to saturate the soil again to the point for the dam to refill, much more than the average rainfall rates in the region will be needed, and those were not achieved this summer."

FRAGMENTED MANAGEMENT

Sarno has pointed out the incongruity of the Brazilian legal system in relation to water resources management as the top reason for the shortage in the country. According to her, although the Federal Constitution provides that the management should be shared between the federal government, the states and the municipalities, there is little dialogue between the parties and the administration of water resources ends up getting fragmented.

"To meet the challenge of shared management, the three [federal, state and municipal] parties need to sit down and discuss. But this step has still not been taken. There are neither vertically talks between the parties nor horizontally ones between institutions," she said.

This fragmentation gets compounded by the mismatch between the division of the federal system, that obeys political criteria, and the division of watersheds, which follows geographic criteria. The watersheds are important because they put another actor in the scene: the Watershed Committees, which comprise the National System for Water Resources Management. Composed of representatives of the various water user sectors, civil society and government organizations, the committees approve the Water Resources Plan for each watershed, arbitrate conflicts over water use, suggest values ​​for the charging of consumption, among others.

According to Sarno, the problem is that none of the management models adopted in the country - municipal management and state management by autarchies or contractors - is consistent with the watershed divisions. "The Committees even do part of the management, but who puts the distribution of water into practice is not them, but managing institutions.”

PUBLIC X PRIVATE

As for Ribeiro, the biggest obstacle to equate the issue of water in Brazil is the private management of water resources. In the RMSP, for example, the management is done by SABESP, a mixed economy company, publicly listed and traded on the stock exchange, which operates according to the logic of a private institution.

"Is it the function of the state to pay up, profit and speculate based on the commercialization of water resources? No, it is not the function of the state to make money from the water, as done by SABESP," warned Ribeiro, noting the lack of transparency in the management of the company. "Besides the water flows, there should be transparency in relation to financial flows," he pointed out.

As Ribeiro, Automare pondered that a government-linked company as SABESP should not behave like a private company, treating water as a product. He also cited the industry of water sold in gallons, whose growth was affecting groundwater, as an example of the commercial exploitation of water resources.

Sarno also addressed the conflict between public and private interests. According to her, Watershed Committees treat water as a commodity, whose distribution should be equal and the charging should happen only to regulate the consumption. The companies that put management into practice, such as SABESP, treat water as a product for sale.

According to the lawyer, the managers of metropolitan regions and municipalities do not take into consideration the willingness of the watershed in allowing, for example, the expansion of an industrial district that could endanger the water supply on site. "It takes measures to reconcile urban expansion and the infrastructure for distribution of water in terms of quality and quantity," he warned.

ETHICAL DIMENSION

Taking a philosophical approach, Carvalho said that the water can be considered from two sets of properties: material ones, linked to biochemical principles, and symbolic ones, related to its immeasurable value to life, making it a symbol of power.

According to him, when considering the symbolic properties, water can be conceived both as a resource - a product to be exploited economically -, as well as a good - something free and not marketable in any way. And it is this conception of a good that should be adopted to tackle the problem of water stress from an ethical perspective.

"Addressing the issue rationally and responsibly involves not putting into practice technoscientific possibilities related to water use that may jeopardize the availability or the material properties of water resources," he said. "If the ethical stance prevailed, there would be no need for rationing and an appeal to the conscience of people would be sufficient," he added.

PARTICIPATION

The panelists drew attention to the low involvement of society in discussions on the management of water resources. According to Automare, water has achieved the last place in the priority list of the citizens of the State of São Paulo: "We have been induced to credit the discussion on the subject to the representatives and forgot to get involved." He also emphasized that "the public has no forum for debate, so the situation is in the hands of technocrats."

Ribeiro has also warned about the paradox that involves the lack of popular participation on the one hand and excess of institutions to manage water on the other. For him, "we have more institutions dealing with water than water itself. There are too much institutions for very little water. And civil society is under-represented within them."

FOOD SAFETY

The water problem has also been addressed from the point of view of quality. Addressing the contamination of water resources by pesticides, Prizendt said that the issue should be discussed with a view to replacing the agribusiness, model of conventional production and based on intensive use of pesticides, by agroecology, an alternative model, whose practices intend to maintain the balance of ecosystems and preserve the sources of rivers and the water system as a whole.

According to her, pesticides are the second leading cause of contamination of rivers, a fact that becomes particularly worrying considering that Brazil is world champion in the use of these substances, accounting for one fifth of what is consumed in the world. Moreover, the agricultural sector accounts for about 70 % of freshwater consumption in Brazil, said the environmentalist.

The 20^th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 20), which will take place in Lima, Peru, over the first two weeks of December, is particularly important as part of the process of negotiating a new global climate agreement to be signed in Paris, France, in 2015.

It is expected that the conference will clarify the main challenges, roadblocks and opportunities available over the course of this complex negotiation process, which, if it reaches fruition, may lead to the realization of a global agreement with responses to the climate crisis.

What can one truly expect from the COP 20? Will actual foundations be set forth for a new climate agreement that, from now on, engages and commits all actions devoted to reducing negative impacts on climate? These issues will be discussed in the debate “COP 20: What Can We Expect?” which IEA-USP's Environment and Society Research Group, with support from the Interdisciplinary Climate Investigation center (INCLINE), will hold on November 26, at 2 pm, at the IEA-USP.

Panel members will include Eduardo Felipe Pérez Matias (from Nogueira, Elias, Laskowski e Matias law firm), Ricardo Baitelo (Greenpeace Brazil) and Wagner Costa Ribeiro (from USP’s School of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences, and IEA-USP). The discussion will be moderated by the research group coordinator, Pedro Roberto Jacobi (USP’s School of Education and IEA-USP).

According to Jacobi, the obstacles and arguments that hinder the adoption of effective commitments by the parties can worsen the progressive withering of multilateral governance on climate change: “As the central controversy of the negotiating process, differentiation may create new foundations to advance actions that mitigate and enable adaptation to climate changes.”

Also according to Jacobi, the central controversies – which are related to the differences – are the degree of responsibility and the ability of each country to measure and acknowledge what it might do to contribute to the actions of adaptation to climate change, inasmuch as mitigation depends on global agreements. For him, the decarbonization agreement between the US and China signed on November 12 is insufficient, but signals changes in the position of the major players.

The event will be broadcast live on the web.