Relevance: GS-3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Key Phrases: Human Development Report, Planetary Pressure-adjusted Human Development Index, Material footprint per capita, Abhijeet Banerjee, planetary boundary, life-supporting system, Multidimensional Poverty Index

Why in News?

• The 2020 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), titled The Next Frontier – Human Development and the Anthropocene proposed a planetary pressure-adjusted Human Development Index (HDI).

Background:

• Ever since the UNDP took up computation of the HDI driven by the vision of Mahbub ul Haq and articulated by Amartya Sen in 1990, there have been adjustments such as inequality-adjusted HDI.
• Besides, there was computation of several other indices such as Gender Development Index, Gender Inequality Index, and Multidimensional Poverty Index to flag the issues that warranted the attention of policymakers.

About Planetary Pressure-adjusted Human Development Index

1. The PHDI is the level of human development adjusted by carbon dioxide emissions per person (production-based) and material footprint per capita to account for the excessive human pressure on the planet.
2. It should be seen as an incentive for transformation. In an ideal scenario where there are no pressures on the planet, the PHDI equals the HDI.
3. However, as pressures increase, the PHDI falls below the HDI. In this sense, the PHDI measures the level of human development when planetary pressures are considered.

Need for Planetary Pressure-adjusted Human Development Index

1. The environment is now considered to be an essential component to be factored in to measure human development: Abhijeet Banerjee
2. The concept of the planetary boundary was introduced by a group of scientists across the world, led by J. Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Centre in 2009.
3. This was to highlight that human-induced environmental change can irrevocably destabilise the long-term dynamics of the earth system, thereby disrupting the life-supporting system of the planet.
4. Both global and local evidences:
   • Biodiversity loss
   • Climate change
   • Land system/land-use change
   • Disruption of biogeochemical cycles
   • Scarcity of freshwater availability
5. The purpose of the planetary pressure adjusted HDI, or PHDI, is to communicate to the larger society the risk involved in continuing with existing practices in our resource use and environmental management

Impact on Country Rankings

• When planetary pressure is adjusted, the world average of HDI in 2019 came down from 0.737 to 0.683.
• Switzerland is the only country in the group of high human development countries whose world rank has not changed with adjustment of planetary pressure, although the HDI value of 0.955 has come down to 0.825 after the necessary adjustment.
• Among 66 very high human development countries, 30 countries recorded a fall in rank values ranging from minus 1 for Germany and Montenegro to minus 131 for Luxembourg.
• It succinctly brings out the nature of planetary pressure generated by the developed countries and indirectly indicates their responsibility in combating the situation.
• In the case of India, the PHDI is 0.626 against an HDI of 0.645 with an average per capita CO2 emission (production) and material footprints of 2.0 tonnes and 4.6 tonnes, respectively. India gained in global rankings by eight points (131st rank under HDI and 123rd rank under PHDI),

India’s progress towards Planetary Pressure-adjusted Human Development

• Overexploitation of Natural Resources: India’s natural resource use is far from efficient, environmental problems are growing, and the onslaught on nature goes on unabated with little concern about its fallout — as evident from a number of ongoing and proposed projects.
• Poverty vs Environment Conservation Dilemma: India has 27.9% people under the Multidimensional Poverty Index ranging from 1.10% in Kerala to 52.50% in Bihar, and a sizable section of them directly depend on natural resources for their sustenance.
• The twin challenges of poverty alleviation and environmental safeguarding that former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi first articulated in her lecture during the Stockholm conference on the human environment in 1972 still remain unattended.
• Poor in SDG achievement: According to NITI Aayog (2020-21), out of 100 points set for the grade of Achiever, India scored 60(performer) for no poverty and 47(aspirant) for zero hunger, with wide State-level variations.
• India’s score in the SDGs of 8, 9, and 12 (‘Decent work and economic growth’; ‘Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure’ and ‘Responsible Consumption and Production’, respectively) — considered for working out planetary pressure — are 61 (performer), 55 (performer) and 74 (front runner), respectively.
• People’s Awareness: Chipko movement (1973) in Uttarakhand and the Silent Valley movement (the late 1970s) in Kerala are two of the most well-known modern-day people’s movements; subsequently, there is widespread awareness about the environment and several initiatives both at the level of the government and the community.
• Social and environmental problems cannot be addressed in isolation anymore; an integrated perspective is necessary. This can be conceived and addressed at the local level, for which India has constitutional provisions in the form of the 73rd and 74th Amendments.

Conclusion

• It is now well established that there are interdependencies of earth system processes including social processes, and their relationships are non-linear and dialectic. Therefore, the central challenge is to nest human development including social and economic systems into the ecosystem, and biosphere building on a systematic approach to nature-based solutions that put people at the core.
• They also provide insights into how to mitigate these impacts and improve life. What is required is a reorientation of the planning process, adoption of a decentralized approach, a plan for proper institutional arrangements, and steps to enable political decisions.

Mains Question:

Q. What do you mean by Planetary Pressure-adjusted Human Development Index (PHDI)? Despite its significance in SDG fulfillment and environment centric human development, the progress towards its adoption is not appreciated by many capitalist nations. Discuss. ( 15 marks)

Source: The Hindu