| Abstract: |
This paper proposes a sustainability-adjusted HDI in which country’s
achievements in human development are penalized, to reflect the
over-exploitation of the environment and its relative intensity. The human
development approach has been a powerful framework in the past for advancing
the measurement of human progress. Today, this approach can help us make more
explicit the profound connections between current and future generations’
choices by offering a framework for understanding sustainability that connects
inter- and intra-generational equity with global justice. The analysis shows
that there are important global sustainability challenges ahead since there
are 79 (out of 118) countries with at least one indicator above the planetary
boundary. There are 17 countries that lost at least one position in their HDI
ranking after adjusting for sustainability. Between these countries, however,
the countries that experience the largest drop in ranking were 37 positions
for the United States, 26 positions for China, and 17 positions for the
Russian Federation. |