Hyderabad: Handling Environmental Issues in Kancha Gachibowli
Recently, the Supreme Court has halted tree felling in Kanch Gachibowli in Hyderabad. There are underlying glolocal (global + local) factors, and understanding these is imperative to understanding the halt. Let us look at the zoom-out and zoom-in views.
Zoom-out
Globalization has promoted intra-industry trade that is leading to a convergence of incomes among trading partners. Trade between nations happens in two ways: inter-industry and intra-industry. Interindustry trade takes place between dissimilar economies and is skewed in its outcomes, that is, advantageous to one partner.
On the other hand, intra-industry trade occurs between similar economies and leads to convergence of incomes. In intra-industry domestic and international firms compete to manufacture similar products to sell in the local market. For example, rising wages in Japan and Europe increased demand for goods and services like the U.S. In turn, this led to increased intra-industry trade among U.S., Europe, and Japan.
A major part of the Indian growth story is explained by increased intra-industry trade. Services in developed nations command high wages, and the advantage of high wages could only be enjoyed by physical migration to the high-income countries, which was available only to a few. Now, software professionals produce services in India and are paid high wages without physically shifting to high-income countries. In turn, high wages earned by software professionals has led to market demand for products consumed in developed nations, thus accelerating intra-industry trade with multiplier effects on job creation and income enhancement (e.g. Bengaluru, Gurugram).
As a result, consumption increased in geometric proportions - what took the UK 100 years, and the US 50, has happened in less than half a century in China and India – and the most deleterious effect has been on biological capital. Earlier biological capital (e.g. soil, water and oxygen and freely available for human use) had a chance to recuperate because consumption was concentrated in one part of the world and among one set of people. Globalization of biological capital has impaired the ability of the Earth to act as an effective sink, and one consequence is the extraordinary increase in carbon dioxide levels, resulting in climatic uncertainty and instability.
Zoom-in
At the local level, the idea of growth at any cost has led to formation of growth machines. Typical machines manufacture products efficiently and consist of moving parts that accomplish production goals efficiently, add value to inputs, and overcome resistance at one point by applying force at another point (leverage). Similarly, the growth machine produces high levels of consistent economic growth, and the organization consists of groups of industrial firms, local businesses, realtors, business organizations: the “entrepreneurial state”. The growth machine also efficiently adds value to land by erecting new structures – offices, housing, tourist facilities, flyovers, underpasses, and so on.
Entrepreneurial Governments pro-actively promote business activities through regulatory and planning support, institutionalizing pro-growth strategies and practices, and promoting connections through intermediaries. This promotion of business activities occurs within a broader vision of public interest. Moreover, the entrepreneurial state attracts “footloose capital” through a slew of incentives and benefits to boost economic development. Finally, the attitude of the local officials is also focused on growth “partly because most accept the dominant ideology of growth, partly because some may personally benefit from increases in land rents”. Therefore, the dominant theme of the glolocalization is that “growth feeds upon growth” and has put the notion of sustainable development on the backburner.
The Way Forward
What is required is using the notion of sustainable development to benchmark all growth machine-induced policies and programs. One way of making the idea operable is to use the sustainability triangle to achieve dual positive outcomes. The sustainability triangle consists of 3Es (economic development, equity and environment preservation) represented by three corners of a triangle. The purpose of policy design is to reach, as much as possible, the center. The 3Es interact with one another in complex and unknown ways and the complexity creates interdependence making prediction difficult. Moreover, to prevent gaming and cronyism, another E, ethics, becomes important.
Policy making must design sustainable development policies that go beyond existing ideas, founded on zero sum outcomes (either/or terms). For example, environmental degradation has to be ignored during the process of economic development, the poor cannot wait for delays caused by including environmental concerns in programs. However, as current trends show, initiatives that lead to zero-sum outcomes are unlikely to lead to sustainable development. Policy design must include an evaluation of the winners and losers among people, planet and profit and aim to achieve triple positive outcomes.
