Mohan Munasinghe at UCL

It's not every day you get to listen to a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

In my previous post I mentioned that I attended a lecture by Professor Mohan Munasinghe on Friday, Vice-Chair of the IPCC and winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. The lecture covered Sustainomics; Munasinghe's brain child.

The lecture started with a heavy emphasis on the framework being transdisciplinary, rather than multi or inter. This involves experts from multiple disciplines combining knowledge before the project starts, rather than towards the end. It seemed odd to spend so long on the point given that he ended up cutting his lecture short.

Then he got to the serious stuff. Multiple heavy shocks to society could result in global breakdown due to climate change, wealth concentration and unsustainable values. This was followed by some shocking inequality statistics, the 85 richest people are as wealthy as the poorest 3.5billion, and then the context; the Millennium Development Goals are worthy targets but if the rich already consume 1.5x the planet where are the resources for today's poor?

M. Munasinghe

Here Munasinghe spoke about the changing global states, from a bipolar USSR-USA world to the US led global effort to dominate the world politically (G7), economically (US$ global reserve currency), militarily (NATO) and through resource wars. Throughout Munasinghe was highly critical of the US and the capitalist values it supports. In my experience this tends to go hand in hand with supporting sustainability, the drive for growth and profit seem to carry a lot of the blame for our current unsustainable society. Now we are in a multipolar world, with economic and political power driven by multiple centres.

As his eyes lit up, it was clear Munasinghe was approaching his favourite part of the talk: Sustainomics. His first point was that development needs to become more sustainable at corporate and international levels, and that almost any project can be made green. He then moved onto his sustainable development triangle: economic, social and environmental. Here Munasinghe described a man walking vs a man sprinting, one is durable and one is optimal, social and environmental concerns opt for the walking and economic opt for the profit maximising sprint, a very effective metaphor. Both are important and require equal weighting, but not how contemporary society operates. Munasinghe rounded off sustainomics with notable mentions for the need to transcend unsustainable values (especially in the youth) and the role of innovation.

M. Munasinghe

Did I enjoy the talk? Yes. Do I think Munasinghe's view of the potential role of sustainomics is feasible? Not really. Munasinghe kept reiterating the need for projects to meet economic, social and environmental goals and how his framework achieves this. But I couldn't help thinking it was all a bit unrealistic. Are we really going to solve climate change among other problems by meeting all the goals of all parties? Munasinghe is convinced, I'm not so. This mess was created by economic prioritisation over social and environmental, and perhaps a more hardline approach switching such priorities is required. Perhaps investing in sustainable green energy solutions even if they are more expensive than fossil fuel alternatives is required. Still, his optimism is infectious and he certainly knows far more than myself about the topic.

M. Munasinghe