3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
3.1.3 Environmental Leapfrogging
In the context of sustainable development for developing countries, which includes the consideration of environmental issues such as degradation of eco-systems, resource depletion or growing GHG emissions, the concept of technological leapfrogging has been extended by the concept of environmental leapfrogging. This definition does not so much focus on leapfrogging in terms of competitiveness and global market shares of industry sectors, but proposes an
growth of GDP. Environmental leapfrogging is considered especially relevant for emerging economies like China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, where the fastest economic growth, population increase and industrialisation appear likely to take place over the next decades.
Environmental leapfrogging is particularly important in regard to the development of energy infrastructures in developing countries. In contrast to already industrialised countries where the physical techno-economic and social-institutional infrastructures of energy generation and use are already fully developed and often locked-in, developing countries and emerging economies are currently still in the process of installing and expanding their energy generation and energy use systems, to support economic growth and to raise living standards. In the context of climate change mitigation, sustainable energy leapfrogging means that these countries would have only a limited need to replace existing carbon-intensive energy plant with clean and renewable technologies, and would essentially have the opportunity to design a sustainable energy system from the outset. The concept offers, at least in theory, the prospect that developing countries can avoid replicating the historical conventional and polluting development trajectory of the industrial West and shape their own development to meet their own needs and requirements (Goldemberg 1998).
A closely related concept is that of ‗tunnelling through‘ the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) proposed by Munasinghe (1999). The EKC seeks to relate the state of the environment to the stage of industrial development, implying that during the initial stages of industrial development less attention is paid to resource depletion, pollution levels and emissions. Only after a certain level of development is achieved, measured by per capita income levels, and societies enter a post-industrial stage where demand for environmental quality increases, are the environmental impacts caused by industrialisation addressed. In contrast, Munasinghe proposes that developing countries could learn from the experiences of industrialised nations, and restructure growth and development to address potentially irreversible environmental damages from an early stage and thereby ‗tunnel‘ through any prospective EKC. Environmental quality
thereby does not have to get worse before it gets better and crossing safe limits or environmental thresholds can be avoided. To achieve ‗tunnelling through the EKC‘ will require active and early employment of policies for environmental protection and sustainable growth. Examples of such measures are environmental standards and regulations, the elimination of economic imperfections such as policy distortions encouraging excessive extraction and export of natural resources and addressing market failures arising from the absence of environmental externalities in prices.
It should be noted that the use of the EKC in this context of environmental leapfrogging does not imply support of the general concept of the EKC. From a global systemic perspective which considers global value chains and trade flows, the concept has proven to be problematic. For instance, according to Rothmans (1998), the environmental improvements in industrialised countries are not the result of reduction of environmental impacts. Instead, consumer societies in industrialised countries have distanced themselves from environmental degradation from production which increasingly occurs in developing countries (Davis and Caldeira 2010). So far, industrialised countries have not achieved an 'outgrowing' of their environmental problems.
Similarly, Bagliani et al. (2008), taking a consumption-based approach to the EKC using the environmental footprint indicator, have not been able to identify a de-linking between economic growth and environmental degradation.
The stylised bell-shaped graph of the EKC is commonly used to depict the concept of leapfrogging, such as by UNEP-DTIE (2006) and Berrah et al (2007) to show the development of China‘s energy intensity and energy efficiency potentials. Thus, although in principle the concepts of leapfrogging (focused on jumping technological generations) and tunnelling through (focused on pollution) are distinct, in practice they tend to be conflated (see Fig.4).
Figure 4: The process of „tunnelling through‟ the EKC using strategies for sustainability (Sources: Munasinghe 1999; UNEP-DTIE 2006; Berrah et al. 2007; Japan Ministry of the Environment 2007)
Some recent research has looked more closely at the idea of environmental leapfrogging.
Sauter and Watson (2008) distinguish three different types of environmental leapfrogging:
leapfrogging as part of the entire development pathways of countries, leapfrogging through industrial development, and leapfrogging via the adoption and use of new technologies. Their study also emphasises the importance of a sufficient level of absorptive capacity – i.e. the ability to adopt, manage and develop new technologies – as a core condition for successful leapfrogging.
The concept of absorptive capacity is complex – it includes technological capabilities (i.e. the resources for generating and managing technical change), knowledge and skills, as well as supportive institutions in terms of laws and regulation, but also informal habits and routines.
The concept of environmental leapfrogging also includes a social development dimension which should not be neglected. The diffusion and application of environmental technologies not only reduces environmental impacts, such as those from CO2 emissions, but at the same time
Environmental Impacts (pollution, resource consumption, GHG emissions, etc)lowhigh
low high
Development level
(economic development, household income levels, etc.) Development path of industrialised countries
Possible leapfrogging ‘tunnelling through’ pathway Environmental safety thresholds
can contribute to sustainable economic development and the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). For example, currently nearly one third of the world population still has no access to electricity and another third has only poor access. Reliance on traditional biomass fuels for cooking and heating can have a serious impact on health and the environment.
There is not only a direct positive link between sustainable renewable energy technologies and climate change mitigation, but also between clean energy and health, education and gender equity outcomes (Modi et al. 2004, Haines et al. 2007)