Human Development

FROM - Focus on carbon reduction strategies as the priority issue for development, industrial design and lifestyle goals.

TO - Achieving a balance between reigning in greenhouse gas emissions and meeting pressing social and developmental goals.

Description of tensions and questions to be explored

The poor are hit hardest by climate change, through compromised health, financial burdens, and social and cultural disruptions, but they contribute the least to it. How can we alleviate the unequal burdens created by climate change? This isn’t just about “The South” but also about poor and marginalised communities in industrial countries, an uncomfortable injustice highlighted by Hurricane Katrina.

Climate change is fundamentally an issue of human rights and environmental justice. From poor African-Americans to Pacific islanders, vulnerable populations across the globe are already feeling the impacts. Even a one degree centigrade rise in mean temperature will reduce the duration of the wheat crop in North India; sea level rise will affect adversely the physical and economic survival of coastal fisher communities. How can we promote climate literacy, supply arrangements and seed reserves at the local level in order to enhance the adaptation and coping capacity of local populations to the more frequent occurrence of drought, floods, higher mean temperature, and rise in sea level?

And how can we ensure that we shift our understanding of quality of living in industrial nations to account for externalities and future capital. We know we need to embed sustainability principles into our design and buildings, but how do we balance lifestyle, poverty and standard of living principles with this great need for alternative ways of building society?

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