Morrissey John, Heidkamp Patrick
Department of Geography, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland.
Department of the Environment, Geography and Marine Sciences, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT USA.
Environ Sustain (Singap). 2022;5(2):261-269. doi: 10.1007/s42398-022-00231-y. Epub 2022 Jun 8.
The vulnerability of the global economy has been starkly exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Longer term thinking and new approaches to development and prosperity are urgently required. In this paper, we forward a series of principles on which economic and development policy for the post-COVID era should be developed. These are outlined as five 'pillars' from which to rebuild the global economy, based on principles of a shared sustainable prosperity. These pillars are: (I) an ecological prosperity; (II) a decarbonized economy; (III) a shared cost burden; (IV) a governance new deal; (V) a just resilience. In outlining the '5 pillars' we explicitly recognize that sustainability cannot simply be a 'green', or environmental concern. Social and economic dimensions of sustainability are key for societal stability and continuity. This is made ever starker in the context of the fundamental economic and societal restructuring forced by the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this regard, the pillars represent a triple bottom line framing of sustainability, of mutually supportive domains of economic, social and environmental well-being. The five pillars are informed by principles of distributive and procedural justice, recognizing the importance and advantages of real community engagement and empowerment and giving due respect and deference to the ecological carrying capacity of our fragile planet. We argue that the post-COVID-19 re-build represents a once-in-a generation opportunity to markedly shift developed trajectories to more sustainable pathways, to rebalance the domains of sustainability, and in the process, to address longer-term crises including those of climate and biodiversity loss.
新冠疫情使全球经济的脆弱性暴露无遗。当下迫切需要更长远的思考以及促进发展与繁荣的新方法。在本文中，我们提出了一系列原则，后疫情时代的经济与发展政策应基于这些原则来制定。这些原则概括为五个“支柱”，旨在以共享可持续繁荣为原则重建全球经济。这些支柱分别是：（一）生态繁荣；（二）脱碳经济；（三）成本负担共担；（四）治理新政；（五）公正的复原力。在阐述这“五大支柱”时，我们明确认识到可持续性不能仅仅是一个“绿色”或环境问题。可持续性的社会和经济层面对于社会稳定与延续至关重要。在新冠疫情造成的经济和社会结构基本重组的背景下，这一点愈发凸显。在这方面，这些支柱代表了可持续性的三重底线框架，即经济、社会和环境福祉相互支持的领域。这五大支柱以分配正义和程序正义原则为指导，认识到真正的社区参与和赋权的重要性及优势，并给予我们脆弱星球的生态承载能力应有的尊重。我们认为，后新冠时代的重建是一个千载难逢的机会，可显著将发展轨迹转向更可持续的道路，重新平衡可持续性的各个领域，并在此过程中应对包括气候和生物多样性丧失在内的长期危机。
