No goal is an island: the implications of systems theory for the Sustainable Development Goals
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No goal is an island: the implications of systems theory for the Sustainable Development Goals Keith R. Skene1 Received: 14 December 2019 / Accepted: 10 October 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have now been in place for 4 years, as the center-piece of the sustainable development program of the United Nations. This paper argues that the Earth system fundamentally represents the organizational framework of the planet and, therefore, any attempt at avoiding the existential threat to humanity that our activities are creating must be integrated within this system. We examine how complex systems function in order to identify the key characteristics that any sustainability policy must possess in order to deliver successful, long-term coexistence of humanity within the biosphere. We then examine what this means in terms of the SDGs, currently the dominant policy document on global sustainability and lying at the heart of Agenda 30. The paper explores what a sustainable program of actions, aimed at properly integrating within the Earth system, should look like, and what changes are needed if humanity is to address the multiple challenges facing us, based on systems theory. Central to this is the acknowledgement of shortcomings in current policy and the urgent need to address these in practice. Keywords Development · Earth system · Emergence · Nonlinearity · Real-time feedback · Sub-optimality · Trade-offs
1 Introduction The journey toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in many ways approximates to the journey of humankind over the last 70 years. Following the First World War, Woodrow Wilson, then president of the USA, led the charge to establish a body to pursue peace among the nations of the world, rather than the terrible cost of war. The League of Nations was established but fell apart in the years leading up to the Second World War. As the Second World War came to an end, a renewed ambition for global unification led to the creation of a number of global organizations. The World Bank (1944), the International Monetary Fund (1944), The United Nations (1945), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (1947), the World Health Organization (1948), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (1961) all worked * Keith R. Skene [email protected] 1
Biosphere Research Institute, Angus, UK
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toward achieving a better planet through the mantra of development, targeted at reducing poverty through economic growth and improving health and education. It was to be the realization of the Enlightenment dream. This brave new world would reduce war and globalize the success of the Western, Northern economies. With empires collapsing, this post-colonial world would need a different form of governorship, that of economics. Development has been a central pillar in the work of the UN since its inception (Kumar et al. 2016). In January 2016, as part of Agenda 30, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) unveiled 1
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