Asia's New Growth Model
Source: CFR, 6/1/2011
Sustainability in the context of emerging economies.
By: A. Michael Spence
“If emerging economies try to reach advanced-country income levels by following roughly the same pattern as their predecessors, the impact on natural resources and the environment would be enormous, risky, and probably disastrous. One or several tipping points would most likely bring the process to a screeching halt. Energy security and cost, water and air quality, climate, ecosystems on land and in the oceans, food security, and much more would be threatened.
At present, almost any standard measure of the concentration of global economic power would show a declining trend. If that were to continue, the result would be a world in which each country’s contribution to pressure on natural resources and the environment would make sustainability a major global challenge, as the free-rider problem in its most extreme form would prevail. To change course, global agreements that impinge on growth would be needed, along with systems that ensure compliance…
As a result, these countries [China and Asia] will have to invent new growth patterns to reach advanced-country levels of development. They are too big to be free riders, so the incentives relating to sustainability are becoming internalized as national priorities. Perceptions are rapidly coming into line with the reality that sustainability must become a critical ingredient of growth. The old model won’t work.”
