Five Predictions for the Globe’s Climate Change Future

UK-based sustainability group Forum for the Future and tech giant HP have just released a clever new climate report (pdf), one that frightens as much as it fascinates.

It’s 2030. The climate crisis has reached the end of its beginning. And the study authors want to know: Is climate change ravaging the planet, or were efforts to combat it successful?

They give five predictions -- five possible "climate scenarios" -- all dealing with the problem in radically different ways. Some ooze "techno-optimism," others a "gloomy certainty of collapse." But in all of them, denial is no longer an option.

The world's "Climate Futures," circa 2030:

1.) Efficiency First

Rapid innovation in energy efficiency and novel technologies have created a low-carbon economy with little need for changes in lifestyle or business practice. Artificially-grown flesh feeds hundreds of millions, supercomputers advise governments, and eco-concrete walls protect the USA’s eastern seaboard generating power from the waves and tides. The result is an increasingly individualistic, consumerist and fast-moving world, which relies on ever more complex systems. Some call it a golden age of technology and freedom, others a shaky house of cards at growing risk of crashing down.

2.) Service Transformation

Carbon is one of the most expensive commodities, businesses have shifted to selling services instead of products, and good citizens share with their neighbors. No-one owns a car – it is far too expensive – and athletes have just staged the world’s first virtual Olympics, staying at home and competing in cyberspace. NATO is ready to go to war if necessary to enforce the 2020 Beijing Climate Change Agreement, and water shortages have already forced the abandonment of Central Australia and Oklahoma. The dramatic transformation in business has been painful, with rising unemployment in the old high-carbon sectors. Booming mega-cities are only just managing to cope and fuel poverty is a huge problem.

3.) Redefining Progress

The global depression of 2009-18 forced governments to regulate the economy tightly and encouraged citizens to put greater priority on quality of life than making money. Countries compete to score highest in the World Bank’s Wellbeing Index and the EU Working Time directive sets a limit of 27.5 hours a week. The trend is towards economic resilience and simpler, more sustainable lives, but "free-riders" plunder resources, several big cities have set up as “havens of real capitalism” and some governments are aggressively pro-growth.

4.) Environmental War Economy

This is a world that woke up late to climate change. Tough measures have been adopted to combat it, pushing markets to the very limit of what they can deliver.
Environmental War Economy – Talks about a post-Kyoto treaty broke down and a global pact was only signed in 2017. Governments enforced tough action to make up for lost time, reshaping their economies to focus all resources on climate change. Civil liberties have been stripped away. You need a licence to have children in some countries and if you go over your household energy quota the carbon monitor will turn off your appliances. Climate refugees from Bangladesh and the Pacific islands make up 18% of New Zealand’s population and are expected to boost Antarctica’s population to 3.5 million by 2040.

5.) Protectionist World

The 2012 Climate Agreement collapsed amid accusations of cheating and undeclared power stations. Globalization fractured into protectionist blocs as countries launched go-it-alone strategies and fought violent wars over scarce resources. Soldiers fighting for nations and businesses are waging war over oil, gas and gold in the thawing north-west passage. Violent factions exploit the chaos to launch devastating bio-chemical attacks. Cyber-terrorists operating from safe havens in failed states have already bankrupted two multinationals. Action to mitigate climate change is all but abandoned.

The five worlds unfold as mish mashes of the strange and extreme. But the writers claim that the study is not science fiction. That it comes from research on the political and behavioral responses to climate change, and that it’s not for naught.

Exploring the future in this way could help us to prepare for a wide range of possibilities. It could even lead to insights that help us to shape the future.

Could be. You be the judge.

Give the scenarios a skim. And if cynicism creeps in, here's a little advice from the authors on how to stretch the mind:

In making the effort to stretch the mind forward 22 years to 2030, it might be useful to consider the scale of change the world has seen in the 22 years since 1986. The Cold War and Soviet Union have disappeared; Germany is united; international terrorist networks have emerged; a third of people in Africa now have a mobile phone; the internet has completely transformed media and communications; we think of ozone depletion as solved; and of course climate change has emerged as an issue of global importance.

We can expect that 2030 will be at least as different from 2008 as 1986 was from today.

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