The old traditional western capitalist development model of the developed world played havoc with the environment and is largely responsible for environmental destruction in the form of global warming and bio-diversity loss. This capitalist model has failed to conserve environment and ensuring sustainable livelihood. Therefore, there is an urgent need of paradigm shift in the advanced capitalist economies and to choose the alternative ‘eco-socialist’ development model to avoid environmental catastrophe in order to save the planet earth.

This was stated by Prof. Dr Pritam Singh of Oxford School of Global and Area Studies while delivering a special lecture titled “Sustainability implications of the spatial shift in global capitalism: An eco-socialist perspective”, organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) here on Thursday at Islamabad.

Dr Pritam Singh said there is evidence of a significant spatial shift in global capitalism which is taken place from relatively less populated countries (advanced capitalist economies) of developed world to massively populated countries of developing world (emerging capitalist economies). He said during the period of 1980 to 2017, there was downward trend observed of developed economies in the share of global GDP, such as United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany and Japan, whereas, there is upward trend in the global share of GDP of developing emerging economies, such as Barzil, India and China. He said further expansion and deepening of capitalism will bring unprecedented environmental and social destruction. The proposed Eco-socialism development perspective visualizes a true eco-friendly economy and society that can be built only by replacing capitalism with a class less society, he remarked.

Dr. Pritam Singh warned about the dire consequences and irreversible changes caused by climate change if global temperature hit the threshold of 1.5 degree Celsius by 2030. The world has left with less than 11 year to take serious actions, he added. It is collective responsibility including individual consumers, institutional practices, collective organizational initiatives, government targets and policies, and global agreements such as Paris Agreement, to help mitigate the dire consequences of climate change. Instead following the model of development world, developing economies like Pakistan need to learn from the mistakes of the develop economies and should strive for building self-sufficient economy, he suggested. In order to achieve sustainable development, every individual has the responsibility to change its consumption behavior and adopt the sustainable practices, he emphasized.

Dr Shafqat Munir, Director Policy, SDPI while moderating the session said that the economic policies and development model of the developing economies, such as of Pakistan should be environmentally friendly. Without protecting the environment, we cannot achieve sustainable development, he added.