Engaging sustainable development: some observations on progress in the UK

Abstract

Continuing criticism of the term ‘sustainable development’ deflects attention from the political project that has to underpin shifts in human behaviour. It is more important to redefine the roles and functions of public and private institutions in ways that legitimate sustainable actions in the belief that latent public support for environmental protection can be converted into a widening range of new but customary behaviours. A brief review of the UK government's response to the Rio declaration demonstrates faltering purpose, reinforcing and reflecting public distrust of government and those commercial interests that benefit from the status quo. Only very modest comfort can be taken from its limited initiatives which range from the greater dissemination of information to the setting of some environmental targets. The unwillingness of government to promote major fiscal or financial reforms, or significantly to decentralize power and initiative, or to recognize the limitations to scientific knowledge when seeking the bases to ‘rational’ decision-making in the face of uncertainty, reveal the inadequacy of the steps so far taken.