Donnabell Dayuday July 17, 2020 TEE100D

Week02 Study Questions:

Lesson 3
1. We’re in the midst of three environmental crises right now, as discussed in
the video lecture. What are they?
The three environmental crises that we are facing right now are the following:
1) human-induced climate change
2) Loss of biodiversity (massive destruction of biological diversity and the
weakening of how the ecosystems function)
3) Pollution (mega-pollution--air and water pollution)

2. What do all of the 6 transformation pathways have in common?

1) Major systemic changes (They involve changes of technology; have a
standard operating practices of investments in physical, capital and in human,
in other words, skill capital and knowledge capital.)
2) Long-term investments (Nothing about the Sustainable Development Goals,
nothing about the transformations of energy systems or digital technologies or
sustainable land use or have sustainable cities or the other transformations
will be met in a year or 2, or even 5, or even 10 years. These are long-term
transformations. We may get to 2030 to reach the SDGS, but we're still going
to have transformation required after that.
3) Complementarity of public action and private action (None of this can be
left only to government or only to the private sector.)
4) Additional financing (All of these transformations require more financing.
You have to pay for the investments, the investments in smart cities, the
investments in the digital revolution, the investments in renewable energy, the
investments in sustainable land use, the investments in improved quality
education, and the investments in healthcare. All of these require financing
and in general, the financing will be complex involving a mix of budgetary
resources, of borrowing, of private capital market investments, of individual
household investment. So this is a quite complex financing picture.)
5) Set of complimentary tools (There's no one trick, no one economic policy
that says, Aha, I put a price on carbon. Now we're on the path to a safe
energy system. It's not so simple, unfortunately. Everything will require
changes of taxation, of pricing, of political institutions, of how our
governments are organized, of how civil society acts of the ethics of a new
era, for instance, the ethical underpinnings of social media. So we will require
a set of economic, political, and social instruments for each of these
transformations. This is deep systemic change. It's one of the exciting, but
core aspects of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.)Lesson 1
Lesson 4
1. What are some of the dimensions that can be assessed when making a
differential diagnosis for analyzing the priorities of the Sustainable
Development Goals?
Some of the dimensions that can be assessed when making a differential
diagnosis for analyzing the priorities of the Sustainable Development Goals are the
following:
a) Differences based on the level of development of the country. (Are we
talking about a rich country that may already have universal access to healthcare
and quality education, but perhaps is a very large emitter of greenhouse gases
and so does not have yet the energy transformation in place? Are we talking
about a poor country? We're the most basic needs of a health system and a
secondary schooling for most of the kids still needs to be put in place?
b) Second kind of dimension along which countries will differ. (Are we talking
about an inclusive society where inequalities are not very large, perhaps there is
linguistic and ethnic homogeneity, or are we talking about a deeply divided
country, perhaps divided by region, perhaps divided by race, perhaps divided by
income class, perhaps divided by religion? All of these divisions pose particular
challenges, in countries that have a hard time often operating seamlessly for the
whole of society.
c) There will be differential diagnosis required based on physical geography.
(Is the country a coastal economy that has the benefits of ocean based trade, but
the risks of rising sea levels? Is the country a landlocked country that has a very
high cost of getting to the port but doesn't have to worry about rising sea levels in
particular? Is your country a tropical country that faces a particular challenges of
the spread of malaria or Zika or dengue fever because of warming temperatures,
or is your country a high latitude, a temperate zone country with very cold winters
that may have a longer growing season in fact, because of overall global
warming?

2. How does the United States measure on the SDG index?

In the video, it is very odd to see that the United States, despite being one of
the top 10 riches countries by their income per capita, don't have any greens on the
dashboard, they only have yellows, beiges and reds, meaning the United States is
not really on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Being rich is not
the same as having sustainable development, because the US is quite unequal in its
income distribution, a lot of social exclusion, a minority groups that really are not in
the mainstream, a lot of gender discrimination, women not sharing in political or
business or financial power in the United States, and the environmental record is
pretty dreadful and getting worse. So actually the United States in the 2017 SDG
index ranked only 42nd out of 157 countries even though it ranked ninth on income.