Sustainable Development and Energy

Sustainable Development and Energy Policy

In this course, Dr Simona Davidescu (University of York) explores sustainable development and energy policy at the global and national levels. In the first lecture, we think about the emergence of sustainable development as a concept, its incorporation into international environmental governance, and why energy policy is important to its realisation. The second lecture then considers how energy systems can be made more sustainable, and the global transition to renewable sources-based energy production. In the third lecture, we look more specifically at the benefits of and obstacles to developing renewable energy systems, and the role of national government policies in promoting the wider adoption of renewable sources. We conclude with a fourth lecture on the role that nuclear power can play in the transition away from fossil fuels-based energy systems.

Sustainable Development and Energy

In this lecture, we think about the concept of sustainable development, its role in international environmental governance, and how it relates to energy policy. We focus on: (i) the growth of concerns around sustainability in the 1960s, culminating in the UN’s first environmental summit in 1972; (ii) the origins of sustainable development in the Brundtland Commission’s 1987 report Our Common Future; (iii) the three interconnected “pillars” of sustainable development - environmental, economic, and social; (iv) conceptual issues and ambiguities in the definition of sustainable development provided by the Brundtland Commission; (v) the embedding of sustainable development in international environmental governance, notably through Agenda 21, adopted by the UN in 1992, and the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); (vi) the central role of energy policy in the realisation of sustainable development, as encompassed by SDG 7’s emphasis on ensuring global access to affordable and clean energy.