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Sustainable Development Essay

Here is an essay plan me and my friends made about sustainable development in Estonia. Would anybody who has done or is doing OCR A2 economics F585 (Global Economy) be able to give some feedback. Has anyone done similar essays that I could look at?

Here is the essay plan:

Using Extract 5, Discuss the Extent to Which Estonia’s Progress Towards Sustainable Development Will Depend on “achieving growth in welfare”

Introduction

• Define sustainable development- This is the process by which people’s welfare and quality of life is improved which meets the needs of current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

• Sustainable development is rooted in a desire to reduce the economic social and environmental costs of economic growth

• Define achieving growth of welfare- This refers to improving the living standards of the population and is measured in a variety of ways including education and health indicators and HDI as well as GDP per capita.

How “achieving a growth in welfare” Will Allow Estonia to Achieve Sustainable Development

• If people have more equal access to education, they are less likely to be unemployed for a long period of time. This will help to achieve the goal of coherent society- Depends on whether the government provides them with enough jobs

• Greater GDP per capita will allow people to get out of poverty

• If there is good welfare, it will help the upbringing of new children in Estonia- This can help foster a better culture

• Using extract- Shows that they perform well in education and viable cultural space in the EU (could be a link there)

• Achieving growth in welfare involves increasing education and productivity. This is investment which raises AD which leads to growth in real GDP but also raises long run aggregate supply because the labour force is of better quality, thereby allowing economic growth to occur without inflation and so preserving economic growth in the long run

Ways in which it won’t

• GDP per capita, health and education do little to contribute to improving Estonia’s ecological balance and reduce environmental costs of growth (part of Estonia’s sustainable development strategy)

• Opportunity cost involved in improving welfare- if you spend money building a hospital, you might not have enough to build wind turbines

• Estonia in last place in terms of electricity produces from renewable sources (1.5%)- Addressing this is key to improving sustainable development

• In order to achieve this- One their aims in sustainable development is capping energy consumption at 2010 levels (will be hard to improve healthcare this way)

• GDP per capita not evenly distributed- Can talk about gini coefficient and Lorenz curve

• Extract shows that Estonia is not doing well in terms of equality (25th out of 27)- Suggests that coherent society needs to be improved before Estonia can improve its welfare levels

• Depends on how GDP per capita was generated and the speed- If it was down to AD only, it could cause inflation. It could be that increases in GDP per capita have come about by cutting down trees and burning down fossils fuels

• There is not as much of a pressing priority to improve welfare as there is to other factors in Estonia’s sustainable development stategy- They have already achieved a fair bit in education but almost nothing in ecological balance

Conclusion

• Improving welfare is crucial- Because it can aid improvements in other areas in some areas

• Factors such as welfare key for development but in terms of sustainability ecological balance arguably more important- There is more of a time limit and it poses more risks for future generations

• However the gap between welfare achievements and achievements in other areas such as ecological balance rather large- Others may need to catch up a bit first

• Has to be some balance between factors- Estonia will not feel the full benefits of welfare unless issues such as equality (within the coherent society bracket) are also dealt with at the same time). Equally if too much priority is given just to improving welfare, other areas could be damaged

• Final point- Estonia should give equal weighting to almost all its sustainable development aims with perhaps a slight emphasis on ecological balance not an increase in welfare

Sustainable Development Essay

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