5 transformational policies for a prosperous and sustainable world Johan Rockstrm
In 2015, we saw two fantastic,
hopeful breakthroughs for humanity.
First, the adoption of
the Sustainable Development Goals,
the collective, universal
plan for humanity
to eradicate hunger,
[promote] good economic
development and good health,
within global environmental targets.
Secondly, after 21 years of negotiations,
we adopted the legally binding
Paris Agreement,
all nations in the world keeping
global warming under two degrees Celsius,
aiming at 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Today, three years down the line,
we’re still in the hand-waving business.
Now, I think it’s time
to step back one step
and recognize that I wonder if the world
leaders really knew what they signed
at the General Assembly three years ago.
These are universal, aspirational,
transformational goals
for inclusive, prosperous humanity
on a stable earth system.
But there are underlying problems.
We have inherent contradictions
between these goals,
where there’s the risk of pursuing
one favored goal at the expense of others.
Take, for example, Goal 8,
on decent work and economic growth.
If we continue doing that
by exploiting natural resources
and burning fossil fuels,
it will be impossible to reach Goal 13.
Three years down the line,
we simply must admit
we’re seeing limited action
to really, really address this
as an inclusive, collective,
universal package.
Now, this requires us
to step back one step.
I think we have to ask ourselves
some hard questions:
Do we have any chance of accomplishing
the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030?
Are there actually inherent trade-offs
that are not compatible
with our current development paradigm?
But are there, perhaps, synergies
where we can really accelerate change?
And is it really a people-planet agenda,
really taking seriously
the social and economic aspirational goals
within the life-support systems on earth?
Now, citizens across the world
have started to recognize
that we’re facing global
rising environmental risks;
in fact, that a stable planet
is a prerequisite
to have good human well-being on earth.
We need to define a safe operating space
on a stable earth system,
and the planetary boundary
framework was introduced
by the scientific community in 2009
to do exactly that.
It has now been widely embraced
across the world
in policy, business and communities
as a framework for sustainable development
in the Anthropocene.
This slide really shows the framework
with the nine environmental processes
that regulate the stability
of the earth system,
providing a safe operating space,
where we’ll have a high chance
of having good human well-being
and prosperity and equity.
If we move into the yellow zone,
we enter a dangerous uncertainty zone;
and into the red, we have a high
likelihood of crossing tipping points
that could take us irreversibly away
from the ability of the earth system
to provide social and economic
well-being for humanity.
Now, we can today, scientifically,
quantify these boundaries,
providing us a stable
earth system for humanity.
But we have to go beyond this
and recognize the Sustainable
Development Goals –
if we really want
to seriously accomplish them –
must now occur within
this safe operating space.
We need to achieve SDGs within PBs.
But dear friends, not even this is enough.
We need to recognize
that the Sustainable Development Goals
is 12 years away.
It’s only a milestone.
It is the bull’s-eye
that we need to go through
and zoom ourselves towards transformations
where we can have a good future
for all co-citizens on earth,
nine billion plus,
within a stable earth system
in 2050 and beyond.
This is a quest,
and in order to really explore this
and not have only opinions about it,
we gathered the scientific community,
the best thinkers and modelers
and started to develop a completely
new complex systems dynamic model,
the Earth-3 model,
building on models that have been around
for the last 50 years.
And here it is.
This is a fantastic piece of work.
This has a climate module, a biosphere
module, a global economic model;
it has algorithms, it has the whole room
of fantastic accomplishments.
This is what turns us scientists on.
(Laughter)
I mean, this is just
a beautiful piece of work?
And I’d just love to spend the whole
evening walking this through with you,
but I’ll make you disappointed.
I cannot do that.
In fact, the only thing I can do with you
is just to assure you
that this is the first time it’s done.
Nobody has ever tried
to really analytically combine
the Sustainable Development Goals
with planetary boundaries.
And we were able to find patterns
and really convergent trends
that gives us a lot of confidence
in our ability to now project
economic development,
resources use from water, food and energy,
population growth, income per person,
yet along these consistent
and systemic pathways.
So, it’s the first time we have
a robust opportunity
to really explore the futures of ability
of attaining the SDGs within PBs.
Now, how do we do this?
Well, look at this.
Here, you have the data
coming from the real world,
calibrated from 1970-2015:
100,000 data points around the world,
building on seven regions' ability,
of really picking on all these
Sustainable Development Goals.
Now, one example of how
we calibrated this,
here you have [data] for
Sustainable Development Goals
on eradicating poverty, health,
education and food.
And here you have in the bubbles
the seven regions of the world,
how they move up until 2015
in our empirical observations
in relation to GDP per capita,
giving these universal convergent trends,
which enabled us to create regressions
that could make us able to do
simulations into the future,
all the way until 2050,
showing the ability along
the lines here to attain the SDGs.
Now, this gave us the opportunity
of doing several scenarios,
testing different possible futures:
business as usual, global transformations,
investment schemes in business,
different governance options,
policies, finance –
really, to explore what
the future can look like
in our ability to attain
the SDGs within PBs.
And the results, I can tell you,
really surprised us.
And this will be
the first time it’s shown.
It should actually not even
be referenced outside of this room.
Now, it actually is presented
along two axes.
The y-axis here shows our ability
to stay within planetary boundaries.
The higher up, the closer you are
to the safe operating space.
On the x-axis are
the Sustainable Development Goals;
the further to the right,
the more of the SDGs we fulfill.
We all want to be in
the upper right-hand corner,
the safe and just world for the future.
Now, the point you see there is 1980.
We were in a situation where we actually
were in a safe operating space
but not meeting so many of the SDGs.
Here’s the trend up until 2015.
So this is the conventional world,
which is actually delivering
on an increasing number of SDGs,
lifting millions of people out of poverty,
but doing it at the expense
of the safe operating space on earth.
Now, this is the scenario
business as usual, into the future.
If we just move on as today,
we will be able to deliver
on some of the SDGs,
but we’ll do it at the expense
of the stability of the earth system.
Now, what if we go faster
on economic growth
and really ally on one percent
increase per year of income
and an even tripling
of the world economy by 2050?
That would give us
the following trajectory.
We would, yes, go a little bit further
on SDG accomplishments,
but still at the expense of the risk
of destabilizing the planet.
But what if we really go harder?
What if we increase our ability
to deliver on our promises by 30 percent
across all sectors in society,
from climate to our trade agreements?
A harder scenario would take us
a little bit better,
but still, we’re failing on the SDGs,
and we are not accomplishing
a safe operating space for humanity.
So this really led us to a quite
disappointing conclusion,
that we will actually, even if we go
conventional futures, fail on the SDGs
and transgress planetary boundaries.
We need some radical thinking.
We need to go into
a transformative, disruptive future,
where we start thinking
outside of the box.
The modeling and engagement
and dialogues enable us to identify
five transformations that could
actually potentially take us there.
The first one is to cut emissions
by half every decade
along the scientific pathway to Paris,
doubling investments in renewable energy,
creating a global energy democracy,
allowing us to meet several of the SDGs.
The second is a rapid shift
towards sustainable food systems,
investing one percent per year
in sustainable intensification
and really moving towards implementing
and investing in solutions
that we already have available today.
The third is really to shift
our development paradigm
and learn from many
of the developing countries
that have moved very fast.
What if we could have
an economic growth such as in China,
while doing it within
the environmental parameters
of an ecological civilization?
Fourth, a redistribution of wealth.
What if we could [agree]
that the richest 10 percent
could not allow themselves to amass
more than 40 percent, maximum,
of national incomes –
a drastic redistribution of wealth,
reforming the ability
of equity across regions?
And finally, fifth, a radical increase
in more education, health,
access to work, contraception,
investing largely in women
across the world,
allowing us to deliver on SDGs
on gender, inequality,
economics and urban development.
Now, if we would push ourselves
across all these five –
we tested this, and it would give us
an amazing journey
towards the safe and just
operating space on earth.
It shows us that even with
a conservative, empirically based,
complex system dynamics model,
we are at a state where we can
actually think of transformations
over the next 12 years and beyond
that can take us up into
the safe operating space
and deliver on aspirational
social and economic goals.
This is actually quite uplifting,
despite the fact that we’re
not moving along this trajectory.
So, in summary:
we now, three years into
the operational delivery on the SDGs,
must draw a line
and conclude that we’re not
delivering on our promises,
and not only that, we’re running the risks
of future generations having
an even tougher ability,
because of the risk of pushing
the earth system beyond tipping points.
In fact, we are facing even
a risk of a hothouse earth,
where we will undermine
and create geopolitical instabilities
that could actually make life
even more tough
for billions of people on earth.
This, in all honesty,
really, really scares me.
But that’s also why
I’m standing here tonight,
because the window
of success is still open.
The earth system is still resilient.
She is still providing us
with ecosystem services and functions
that can allow us a transition
back into a safe operating space.
But we need radically different thinking.
We need to see this
as an incredible wake-up call
but also an opportunity
for transformative change,
where we shift gears
and really start thinking
of the SDGs as a transformative agenda
within a safe operating space on earth.
In other words, we can build
a safe and just world.
We just have to really,
really get on with it.
And let’s do it. Thank you.
(Applause)