Cities: Steering towards sustainability

Rajendra K. Pachauri

Laurence Tubiana

Pierre Jacquet

The Energy and Resources Institute, TERI

A Planet for Life 2012 focuses on agriculture and its relation to development, food and the environment. At the end of the 2000s, a consensus has emerged and points to the urgent need for massive investment in the agricultural sector, which is (once again) viewed as one of the prime engines for development and food security, as well as for poverty reduction. But what exactly does this consensus cover? While the idea of investing in agriculture is gaining ground and although several countries or regions appear to be offering opportunities for investment in agricultural land, debates are going on as to which agricultural models to choose and how agricultural policies should be implemented. A Planet for Life called on many highly specialized authors from different countries and perspectives, and invites the reader to discover the sector in all its complexity, upstream and downstream of agricultural production. At the crossroads of the challenges posed by development, food security and the environment, the transformation of the agricultural sector is at the heart of the global stakes of sustainable development. To help steer these changes towards greater sustainability, this book makes us aware of how crucial it is to also change our representations of agriculture, change the visions that guide projects for change and the policies regulating this sector. Key features: <ul>
<li>Associate editors: Viviane Gravey (IDDRI), Raphaël Jozan (AFD), Sébastien Treyer (IDDRI) and Sanjivi Sundar (TERI) </li> <li>Papers by leading international experts and scholars</li> <li>New perspectives from across the planet</li> <li>Multiple maps, charts, timelines and thematic focus essays</li> <li>A wealth of ideas for specialists and non-specialists alike (policy-makers, administrators, concerned citizens, development professionals, entrepreneurs, journalists, students, and others) </li> </ul>
Contents: <ul>
<li>Agriculture: A Prerequisite to Sustainable Development</li> <li>Development, The Environment and Food: Towards agricultural Change?</li> <li>Agriculture and food security: taking the measure of a global challenge </li> <li>Food crisis: a reshuffling of stakeholders</li> <li>Agriculture and transition in a globalized world</li> <li>The role of agriculture in African economic development: what do we disagree on?</li> <li>Land, peasants and migrants: the heart of China s development </li> <li>Global conditions for the future of agriculture in the anthropocene </li> <li>Can agricultural intensification save forested land? A review and case study in Indonesia</li> <li>Climate change and food security. A crucial test for humanity?</li> <li>Agricultural research: a global innovation system at the core of strategic choices</li> <li>An ethnography of cotton production and exchange in a Turkish village</li> <li>The agri-food industry at the heart of the global food system</li> <li>Instability in agricultural prices: a comfortable truth</li> <li>Sustainable voluntary standards: towards privatized regulation in the food and farm sector?</li> <li>Latin America and the Caribbean: rebuilding agricultural policies</li> <li>Food security as a global public good</li>
</ul>

Towards Agricultural Change?

The reduction of inequalities within and between countries stands as a policy goal, and deserves to take centre stage in the design of the Sustainable Development Goals agreed during the Rio+20 Summit in 2012. The 2013 edition of A Planet for Life represents a unique international initiative grounded on conceptual and strategic thinking, and most importantly empirical experiments, conducted on five continents and touching on multiple realities. This unprecedented collection of works proposes a solid empirical approach, rather than an ideological one, to inform future debate. The case studies collected in this volume demonstrate the complexity of the new systems required to accommodate each country s specific economic, political and cultural realities. These systems combine technical, financial, legal, fiscal and organizational elements with a great deal of applied expertise, and are articulated within a clear, well-understood, growth- and job-generating development strategy. Inequality reduction does not occur by decree; neither does it automatically arise through economic growth, nor through policies that equalize incomes downward via ill conceived fiscal policies. Inequality reduction involves a collaborative effort that must motivate all concerned parties, one that constitutes a genuine political and social innovation, and one that often runs counter to prevailing political and economic forces. Key features: <ul>
<li>Multiple maps, charts, tables</li> <li>A wealth of ideas for specialists and non-specialists alike; scholars, policy-makers, administrators, concerned citizens, development professionals, entrepreneurs, journalists, students, and others.</li> </ul>
Contents: Chapter 1 Why inequalities matter, by Pedro Ramos Pinto Chapter 2 The new prosperity of rentiers, by Thomas Piketty Chapter 3 Inequality, the emergence of a political idea in the 20th century, by Vincent Bonnecase Chapter 4 Inequalities and growth: A comprehensive ideology emerges, by François Bourguignon Chapter 5 Economic equality as a condition for biodiversity conservation, by Raphaël Billé, Gilles Kleitz, Gregory M. Mikkelson Chapter 6 Income inequalities, health inequalities and social progress, by Sridhar Venkatapuram Chapter 7 Inequalities within the urban half of the world, by David Satterthwaite and Diana Mitlin Chapter 8 Killing carbon tax with the equity argument - Lessons from the Sarkozy tax, by Jean-Charles Hourcade Chapter 9 Pathways to sustainability in a crisis-ridden world, by Peter Utting Chapter 10 Brazil s social policy in the 21st century, by Thiago Varanda Barbosa, Mayra Juruá Oliveira Chapter 11 Bringing Bottom of the Pyramid into business focus, by Erik Simanis Chapter 12 The solidarity economy: emancipatory action to challenge politics, by Bruno Frere Chapter 13 Defining sustainable development goals for 2030, by Xue Lan, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Guido Schmidt-Traub, Laurence Tubiana Other books on "A Planet of Life" Series: Cities: steering towards sustainability (ISBN: 9788179931318) Towards Agricultural Change? (ISBN: 9788179934432) Oceans: the new frontier (ISBN: 97881799340

Reducing Inequalities: A Sustainable Development Challenge

Business & Money

Rémi Genevey

Economics

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