Decoding Human Development and Environmental Sustainability: A Predictive Analytical Study on Relationship Between HDI and Carbon Emission

According to PhraDhammapidhok, a well-known Buddhist philosopher and monk, the Brundtland Commission Report from the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), which is also known as the Brundtland Commission Report, lacks the human development dimension. Sustainable development is defined as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs.” According to the eastern viewpoint, sustainability is uncompromising and aims to alter people's attitudes towards the environment so that they can co- exist peacefully with it. This attitude is supported by effective environmental communication across all media. However, sustainability that is founded on western ideals causes development to enter a “cul-de-sac.” The Human Development Index (HDI), one of the most significant of all the variables, is used in a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report to empirically quantify human and sustainable development during the past ten years. This research tries to bridge the ideas of the east and the west empirically by applying Correlation and Regression Analysis (CRA) to secondary data available from UNDP of 2010 and 2011 to support the hypothesis that there is a strong correlation between HDI and Environmental sustainability, henceforth proving the fact as stated by the eastern philosophers on the concept of sustainability, that sustainable development is possible only if human development and environment sustainability is at sync with each other. This will help to further the study of communication for sustainable development because human communication needs to be environment inclusive in nature, a road map to realise communication as a bridge be- tween human and nature.