Yes, humanity faces existential risks. In the coming decades, billions of people in the world’s poorest economies will bear the brunt. The planet is now more likely to cross multiple climate tipping points.
Undoubtedly, a future full of challenges awaits us, with continuous shocks that will shake governments around the world to their core. And, yes, only we ourselves, or, more precisely, the richest among us, are to blame. But is the collapse of our endlessly inventive and often bewildering free civilization inevitable? Absolutely not.
As Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, told world leaders gathered in Egypt last week at the United Nations Climate Change Conference: “We know what it is to remove slavery from our civilization, to find a vaccine within two years for a pandemic, put a man on the moon.
But the only solution to the current crisis offered by politicians is economic growth. While growth is essential to lift the poorest countries out of poverty, resilient societies will not be built on increasing wealth, but on greater social cohesion, good governance and the capacity to innovate.
Two years ago, we launched the Earth4All initiative, an international collaborative effort of economists, scientists, and activists to examine policy solutions that move humanity away from collapse and toward resilience. We present our findings in a new book, Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity.
We explore two scenarios: too little, too late, and the giant leap.
In both scenarios, the global economy grows throughout this century. In the first, the rich get richer, leaving the poor further behind. Social tensions increase. Governments struggle to cope with big shocks. The risk of regional collapse grows every decade. We can be sure that on our current path, the global average temperature rise is likely to reach a catastrophic 2.5° Celsius, putting the world in grave danger. This is the path we are on.
But it is not the only way. With extraordinary effort, societies can transform into “welfare economies” that are more resilient to shocks. Social tensions drop. The increase in global temperature stabilizes at around 2 °C. This is the Giant Leap.
Earth4All can trace its origins back to the report commissioned by the Club of Rome the limits of growth, published 50 years ago. Back then, scientists used early computer models to show that the Earth’s finite resources would eventually collapse under the weight of material consumption. Food production would fall, followed by a precipitous drop in population.
At the time, the conclusion that pushing beyond the planet’s limits could lead to collapse shocked many people. Over the last 50 years, the world has followed the worst case scenario reported and we are beginning to see deep fractures in Earth systems and within societies.
But we believe our future will be built on economic optimism, not despair. Our analysis concludes that any strategy to build just and resilient societies must address poverty, inequality, gender imbalances, food insecurity and access to energy. The transformation we need depends on addressing them all together.
Redistributing wealth is necessary to rebuild trust in democratic systems, which is essential to broaden political support for bold decisions. The policies we propose, including progressive income and wealth taxes, international tax alignment and a universal basic dividend, would ensure that the richest 10% have less than 40% of national income by 2030 and further reduce inequality. beyond this date.
Addressing wealth and income inequality must also go hand in hand with reining in disproportionate greenhouse gas emissions and biosphere consumption by the richest. This is why a fair carbon price is a smart way to redistribute wealth and reduce emissions.
Without profound change, climate chaos, food insecurity and poverty are likely to spark conflict and social unrest in vulnerable regions, with spillover effects everywhere. As Mottley warned in Sharm El-Sheikh, we can expect a billion refugees by 2050.
This is a reasonable estimate, given that without immediate deep emissions cuts, the largely uninhabitable zones around the equator are expected to expand in the coming decades, encompassing densely populated areas. High-risk countries include some of the most fragile and vulnerable states on Earth: Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Philippines.
Today, it may seem that the world is as far from an Earth4All future as ever. But we found some room for optimism. We may have already reached a positive social tipping point: citizens want change. Our global survey finds that 74% of people in G20 countries want their governments to reform economic systems to prioritize well-being and the planet over a singular focus on growth and profit.
Our civilization often does the right thing when we have exhausted all other alternatives. This point has already been reached. Humanity’s future on Earth will be much more peaceful, prosperous and secure if we do everything in our power to rebuild our economies to maximize planetary well-being and resilience rather than shareholder value. —© Union Project
Owen Gaffney is the head of impact for Nobel Prize Outreach. Sandrine Dixson-Declève is Co-President of the Club of Rome. Per Espen Stoknes is Director of the Center for Sustainability and Energy at the BI Norwegian Business School.