The Planet in 2050

The Lund Discourse of the Future

Jill Jäger, Sarah Cornell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136875427
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

In 2050, the billions of people living on Earth have found a way to manage the planetary system effectively. Everyone has access to adequate food, shelter, and clean water. Human health is no longer considered outside of the health of the ecosystems in which people live. Ecological awareness is an integral part of education. People respond effectively to social and environmental hazards, and societies care for the most vulnerable amongst them. The economy, too, has shifted. Carbon dioxide management is under control, and energy efficiency is the norm. The remaining rainforests have been preserved. Coral reefs are recovering. Fish stocks are thriving. Is any of this really possible? How can our complex social and economic systems interact with a complex planetary system undergoing rapid change to create a future we all want?

This book is a contextualised collation of ideas articulated by the 50 participants of the Planet 2050 workshop held in Lund in October 2008, as part of The Planet in 2050, an interdisciplinary Fast Track Initiative of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. Participants were selected from academia and the sustainability practice community to give a wide-ranging, multi-cultural, trans-disciplinary set of perspectives.

This collection explores four broad sectoral themes: energy and technologies; development, economies and culture; environment; and land use change. By doing so, this book emphasises the importance of a social dialogue on our collective future, and our responsibility to the Earth. It makes strong statements about what needs to happen to the global economy for a sustainable future and documents a new kind of scholarly discussion, engaging people from diverse knowledge communities in a spirit of exploration and reflexivity. The book provides a focus for dialogue and further study for postgraduates and researchers interested in global change as a multi-faceted, socio-environmental phenomenon, and as the book is written in an accessible scholarly style, assuming no prior specialist knowledge, it is also suitable for those involved in sustainability initiatives and policy.

1 The Lund Meeting and the Production of this Book

Between 27 and 31 October 2008 a meeting was held in Lund and Malmö, Sweden, to develop a “vision for the Planet in 2050” and discuss how that vision could be achieved. The meeting was organized in two blocks, each of two days, with a “day off” in the middle of the week, during which the participants engaged in a variety of activities, including visits to sustainable development projects in the area and public events.

The meeting was organized by a small committee and supported by a wide range of institutions. Before the meeting, all of the invitees were asked to send “their vision” of the planet in 2050. These were made available on the meeting website (www.theplanet2050.org) and provided inspiration and background for the discussions that took place in Lund. Most of the meeting took place in working groups and was structured so there were opportunities for people to participate in the discussions of more than one group.

The Working Groups were:

• Land-use change, agriculture and urban development (chaired by Mary Scholes, Rapporteur Washington Odongo Ochola);
• Energy and technology (chaired by Martin Hoffert, Rapporteur Joshua Farley);
• Development, global economy and culture (chaired by Manuel Cesario, Rapporteur Sylvia Karlsson);
• Environment, climate change, air and water pollution and health (chaired by Sybil Seitzinger, Rapporteur Kathy Hibbard).

Each of these groups produced a written report, focusing on their vision for 2050 and the pathways to achieve that vision. After the meeting, as the editors began to put together the material from the meeting, it became clear, however, that it would be much better to restructure the four reports into the four following chapters of this book: the planet in 2010; the vision for 2050; the pathways to achieve that vision; and the challenges ahead. Thus, most of the material in this book is taken directly from the reports of the groups that met in Lund, but sorted into these chapters. In addition, excerpts from the individual vision statements have been included, to illustrate both the diversity of perspectives among the participants and, in some cases, very specific aspects of the visions.

1.1 The Organizing Committee

This group “met” regularly in telephone conferences organized so the massive difference in time zones could be bridged – thus while it was (very) early in the morning in Australia, it was (quite) late in the evening of the previous day in Europe and just after lunch in Colorado! There were also a few face-to-face meetings of sub-sets of the committee, but most of the discussion on potential participants, topics to be covered, logistics for the meeting, funding sources, etc. was carried out electronically and on the telephone.

The Committee was chaired by Guy Brasseur, and the other members were: Will Steffen, Torvald Jacobsson, Robert Costanza, Jill Jäger, Sarah Cornell, Rik Leemans and John Katzenberger.

1.2 The Sponsors

The meeting in Lund was supported by a wide range of sponsors:

LMK industry manages financial holdings and provides strategic business development consulting to international growth-oriented high-tech companies. www.lmkindustri.com.

The Heinz Center is a non-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to improving the scientific and economic foundation for environmental policy. www.heinzctr.org.

National Center for Atmospheric Research provides the university science and teaching community with the tools, facilities and support required to perform innovative research. www.ncar.ucar.edu.

Quantifying and Understanding the Earth System (QUEST) is a programme created in 2003 by the UK Natural Environment Research Council with a focus on interdisciplinary research, closely targeted to help deliver a substantial improvement in our quantitative understanding of global environmental change. http://quest.bris.ac.uk.

Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) is a partnership for the integrated study of the Earth system, the ways that it is changing and the implications for global and regional sustainability. www.essp.org.

The city of Lund is a meeting place for people and their ideas, knowledge and creativity. www.lund.se.

Lund University is an international centre for research and education that has approximately 38 000 students. www.lu.se.

The city of Malmö is the commercial centre of southern Sweden and an international city undergoing a transition from being an industrial city to a city of knowledge and sustainable development. www.malmo.se/english.

The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University (IIIEE) seeks to facilitate the transformation of societies to sustainable development by utilizing the synergies of cross-disciplinary education and research that is based upon direct engagement with private and public sectors and government. www.iiiee.lu.se.

Region Skåne is a regional public body responsible for health, medical and dental services, and will also have responsibility for future issues. www.skane.se.

European Science Foundation is an a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. The Lund Meeting and the Production of this Book
• 2. Developing a Vision for the Planet
• 3. The Starting Point: Planet 2010
• 4. The Vision of 2050
• 5. Pathways between 2010 and 2050
• 6. Back to the Reality of 2010 and the Challenges Ahead
• Notes
• References
• Index