Parallel session 5: Social justice, sustainability and the SDGs: What role for economic growth?

Abstract

Is infinite economic growth in all countries, qualified by adjectives such as ‘sustainable’ and ‘inclusive’ (SDG 8), one of the ‘bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path’ (SDGs, preamble)? Or is it a distraction away from the fundamental questions of transformation and redistribution necessary for achieving a safe and just world for humanity (Leach, Raworth and Rockström, 2013)?

            The Human Development Report, originally a reaction to the limiting monetary approach of measuring countries’ success through Gross Domestic Product (GDP), has come under criticism of not engaging with the ecological limits of our planet (see e.g. Hickel, 2020). In 2020, a new version of the report has come out where it for the first time engages with the natural world, leading to a degrading of countries like Norway, while no countries occupy the space for states that are successful both in terms of environmental protection and human development. What role is there then for economic growth in the further discussion of how to achieve a sustainable future?  What will the transition to sustainability require of us as global humanity? And is there an ‘us’ or are we – as scientists and scholars in the privileged and so unsustainable part of the world – defining yet again what is the way forward for everyone?

Key questions

1. How can we, in a globally inclusive way, best mobilize knowledge and research about complex and intersecting inequalities?
2. Which critical re-thinking and re-formulation of the SDGs needs to be undertaken in order to understand and tackle changing forms of inequality post-COVID-19?
3. Reflecting the discussions in this session, what are the three most important recommendations for policy development and reform addressing global post-COVID-19 inequalities? 

Programme and participants: 

13:00-13:10    Welcome

Beate Sjåfjell, University of Oslo

13:10-13:30    ‘Social justice in a post-pandemic world with (still) decreasing natural resources’

Associate Professor, Dr Sarah Cornell, Stockholm Resilience Centre

13:30-13:40    ‘Vulnerability and resilience’

Professor Louis Kotzé, Faculty of Law, North-West University, South Africa

13:40-14:30:   Discussion

14:20-14:30    Concluding reflections

14:30               End of session

Session organizer and resource persons  

Moderator/session organizer: Beate Sjåfjell, University of Oslo

Discussant: Giulia Testa, ERASMUS exchange student at University of Bergen