Scientific Committee

Biography

Prof. and Dr. Dai-Yeun Jeong is presently the Director of Asia Climate Change Education Center and an Emeritus Professor of Environmental Sociology at Jeju National University (South Korea). He received BA and MA Degree in Sociology from Korea University (South Korea), and PhD in Environmental Sociology from University of Queensland (Australia). He was a professor of environmental sociology at Jeju National University (South Korea) from 1981 to 2012. His past major professional activities include a Teaching Professor at University of Sheffield in UK, the President of Asia-Pacific Sociological Association, a Delegate of South Korean Government to UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and OECD Environmental Meeting, etc. He has published 13 books including Environmental Sociology, and has conducted 100 environment-related research projects funded by domestic and international organizations.

Abstract

Sustainable development is the ideology and practical strategy of the present and future socio-economic development in harmony with nature. A wide range of policies and practical activities have been launched at a global, national and regional level for achieving sustainable development since WCED suggested its concept and implication in 1987. In 2015, United Nations adopted a set of sustainable development goals to be achieved over the next 15 years as a follow-up action plan of millennium development goals. However, it is true that sustainable development is not achieved as successfully as planned. Its evidences are that we are still faced with serous natural disasters such as climate change. This would mean that sustainable development has limitations in its concept, implications and strategies being implemented. Nonetheless, it is quite rare to conduct a research on the limitations. In such a context, this paper aims at exploring the limitations and how to overcome them.
This paper will first review the concept and implications of sustainable development and the critical debates on sustainable development from the 19th century to the 2000s, and then will draw the limitations inherent in sustainable development from the review.
The limitations are synthesized into four categories – conflict among the goals of the three conceptual components of sustainable development (environment, economy, and society) caused by horizontal perspective, not inclusive coverage of social sector as a conceptual component, less efficient approach to the achievement of sustainable development goals, and no mechanism for drawing social consensus necessary for achieving sustainable development. Then, this paper will examine what and how to overcome the limitations in a way to focus on what the existing concept and implications of sustainable should be modified and/or supplemented. Finally, based on overcoming the limitations, this paper will propose a new direction of the coexistence between humans and nature for achieving sustainable development