Abstract
Economic activity has many metrics and characteristics, the role and meaning of which change over time and space. Color metrics have recently become one of them. At the initial stage of economic development, it was most likely colorless or neutral, which meant that there was a certain equilibrium of colors. An analogy can be made here with the usual transparent (white) color, which is a combination of many colors, mutually balancing each other. With the development of industrialization, darker shades became more and more dominant in the palette of economic activity. Mainly black and brown, directly associated with the emission of pollutants into the atmosphere, water basins and landscape.
At first, awareness of the danger of these changes (primarily in terms of damage to human health) led not so much to the development and attempted implementation of cardinal and global steps and measures to neutralize them, as to the intensive relocation of «blackened» and «browned» activities to other territories and other countries.
Over time, as the balancing capacity of the natural environment was exhausted, the need for a global agenda to combat these processes emerged. On this wave, various approaches to the formation of sustainable development models emerged and began to evolve, both in environmental and socioeconomic contexts.
Alas, the initial model-based, generalized considerations did not lead to realistic, meaningful results: the world has not become more sustainable. This is true both ecologically and socioeconomically--there are still enormous inequalities between countries and whole continents, and the world as a whole is progressively and even more rapidly shifting toward a darker spectrum of colors.
It was for this reason that the Paris Agreement, and then all subsequent low-carbon solutions and initiatives, emerged.
Recognizing the danger that threatens human civilization both because of climate change and because of the general deterioration of the natural environment under the influence of destructive anthropogenic impacts was, perhaps, the simplest stage. It is much more difficult to develop and implement coordinated and mutually acceptable measures both by different countries and by different participants in the process of «normalizing the palette. The present stage is characterized, on the one hand, by «incompleteness» of the process of classifying «green» activities (paper by A. A. Balabin), on the other hand - by the continuing (despite the urgency of the situation) focus on achieving profit from «green projects» by transnational companies and institutional investors (paper by O. N. Buchinskaya).
It is impossible not to see that the «good old approach» of the initial period of awareness of the «darkening» of the color palette is enduring and very stable. It is distinguished by the tendency of developed industrialized countries, implementing their own strategies of decarbonizing their economies, to shift part of their burden to states that are in adverse environmental conditions and have much less economic potential to meet their goals.
Can this «syndrome» of temporal and spatial imbalance of color in economies today and in contemporary societies be overcome?
Yes, quite well. Success is based not only on adherence to common agreed principles, but also on a flexible consideration of the specificities of different countries and territories. The latter may be conditioned not only by natural factors and characteristics, but also by the prehistory of economic development and the system of administrative-territorial structure of a country. An example of a balanced and balanced approach to the analysis of both the color palette itself and measures to improve it (in the direction of increasing its «blueness») is the development of Arctic fisheries and aquaculture (paper by A. Tsiuvalas and A. Raspotnik). The most important factor of success of the system aimed at equalizing the color balance is its close connection not only with the economy and ecology, but also with the sustainability of social communities in this or that territory. The latter implies a mandatory consideration of the cultural and historical features of the development of the territory, as well as a scientifically sound approach to the management of the processes of achieving the declared goals.
There is a special reason to mark this circumstance in this issue of «ECO» magazine - the anniversary of the founder of the magazine and one of the founders of the scientific system approach to managing socio-economic processes in our country and in Siberia - academician Abel Gezevich Aganbegyan. A significant period of scientific and practical activity of Abel Gezevich is associated with Siberia, the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production SB RAS and the «ECO» magazine founded by him.
One of the most important principles that Abel Gezevich has always followed and continues to follow is that the creation of scientifically based management systems is impossible without immersion in the real economic reality. The impetus to consolidation of this obvious, it would seem, approach to the solution of management problems was an incident from his experience in the «State Committee of Labor» in 1950’s: One of the leading experts, objecting to increase of tariff rates for miners, after he himself had an opportunity to go down into the mine and see what the work in the mine is like, immediately reconsidered his position.
Subsequently, the indispensable immersion in reality along with the use of modern economic and mathematical tools became one of the cornerstones of the system approach to the solution of various problems of social and economic development of the country and, first of all, Siberia.
Abel Gezevich had the opportunity to visit repeatedly all the most important objects, created on this vast territory for more than half a century. Issues of sustainable socio-economic development of Siberia and its individual regions were constantly raised and defended by him and his associates. Despite the difficulties arising from the lack of understanding, and sometimes - outright rejection of his ideas and approaches, aimed at forming the basis for sustainable socio-economic development of the country and its eastern regions, that period of work other than «The address of happiness: Siberia!», Abel Gezevich does not define. It is based on an inscription he saw on a house in Divnogorsk, the city of builders of the Krasnoyarsk Hydroelectric Power Plant.
Thank you, dear Abel Gesevich, for your consistency in defending and promoting the principles of creating and maintaining a balanced, socially-oriented color palette of the national economy. You and your colleagues have elaborated the foundations - it’s just a matter of implementing them in practice. How and with what success? - «Not easy, read «ECO»!»
