SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND CONCOMITANT RISKS
The article considers the risks connected with the practical attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In the circumstances of the complex world crisis, the SDG can be used as a cover on the way to quite different goals, as one of the means of the struggle for power and influence. It is suggested among other things by the very origin of the idea of sustainable development which was put forward in the 1970s by the Club of Rome with its underlying globalist agenda. In the 21st century, the problems of the SDG acquire special importance in connection with the fall of Western world dominance. The SDG can in fact be used by a part of Western elites among methods of imposing of Western world view onto all countries. For instance, the agenda of “green energy” connected with a number of the SDG, in reality, can be used to set to zero the successes of the industrial competitors of the West. In fact, it is one of the West’s responses to the intention of other centers of power (first of all Russia and China) to quit the Bretton Woods system in the circumstances of the impending financial crisis and the change of economic paradigm. Also, in connection with the SDG, the West can use such an instrument of geopolitical struggle as the imposition of its values (democracy, human rights, tolerance, etc.) onto the whole world. That said, the West not only pretends to have the monopoly right to interpret these values but also pushes them forward selectively, having a blind spot for its client states. However, the intrusion into other civilization spaces proves to be counterproductive. The understanding of Western “double standards” has been rising in the world, as well as of the fact of Western centuries-old aggressiveness. The consequence is the strengthening of regional and national institutions and processes. A detailed analysis of the SDG with consideration to risks for world stability and human nature itself may prove indispensable for peoples’ defence of their cultural identity, their state sovereignty, and the human being as an ethical creature.