“Transformation is feasible”. “How to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals Within Planetary Boundaries.”
A Report to the Club of Rome from the Stockholm Resilience Center and the BI Norwegian Business School.
They use a model with many development factors to model what futures we may have. I have presented their most positive obtainable model below.
They propose the following Transformational Actions to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2050.
- Accelerated renewable energy growth, halve carbon emissions every decade.
- Accelerated productivity in food chains, by 1% a year.
- New development models in poorer countries.
- Active inequality reduction to less than 40% going to the top 10%.
- Education for all, gender equality, health care, and family planning to stabilize the world’s population.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals and desired “Green” outcomes follow.
- No poverty: Fraction below $1.90 a day is less than 2%.
- Zero hunger: Less than 7% undernourished.
- Good health: Life expectancy greater than 75 years.
- Quality education: Greater than 10 years universal.
- Gender equality: Parity in schooling greater than 95%.
- Safe water: For population greater than 98%.
- Enough energy: Access to electricity greater than 98%.
- Decent jobs: Job growth greater than 1% a year.
- Industrial output: GDP per person greater than $6,000 PPP per year.
- Reduced inequality: Less than 40% of national income to richest 10%.
- Clean cities: Urban aerosols of 2.5 M less than 10 microgram per cubic meter.
- Responsible consumption: Ecological footprint less than 1.4 gha/person.
- Climate action: Temperature rise less than 1 degree C.
- Life below water: Acidity of ocean surface greater than a pH of 8.15.
- Life on land: Old growth forest greater than 25 million? kilometer squared.
- Good governance: Government spending greater than $3,000 PPP per person per year.
- More partnership: Greater than 15% of GDP to exports.
Achieving these goals would require that the 2050 world’s population be reduced to 7.7 billion. Other reductions are the US population would be 307 million, the Chinese population at 1.3 billion, and the Indian population at 1.81 billion.
Share of income to the top 10% would be reduced worldwide from 49% in 2015 to 40%. The US share would be reduced from 47% to 39%. India’s (the highest) would be reduced from 55% to 40%.
Ecological use is measured in global productive area in hectares (about 2.5 acres) per person (gha/p). The world average is 3, and would stay at that value. The US average is, of course, 8, the largest, and would be reduced to 5 in 2050.
The GDP per person worldwide in 2015 PPP was $13,000, and would rise to $29,000. The US GDP per person was $49,000, and would only rise to $53,000.
I like to go to science fiction movies to see what kind of a utopia they envision, but most often it is a dystopia. These actions and goals can take us from our present dystopia to a shining utopia in 2050. Many Democrats have the same goals in our present election.
