The global futures scenarios vary widely along different demographic, socio-economic, and technological dimensions, as shown in Table 2.2. Scenarios range from economic collapse to virtually unlimited economic prosperity; from population collapse (caused by famine, disease, and/or war), to stabilization near current levels, to explosive population growth. Governance systems range from decentralized, semi-autonomous communities with a form of direct democracy to global oligarchies. Some scenarios posit large improvements in income and social equality, within and among nations, while others foresee a widening of the income gap. Many scenarios envisage a future world that is high-tech, with varying rates of diffusion, but some envisage a world in which a crisis of some kind leads to a decline in technological development and even a loss of technological capability. Most scenarios are pessimistic with respect to resource availability; some are more optimistic, pointing to the ability of technology and demand changes to alleviate scarcity. Most scenarios also project increasing environmental degradation; more positively, many of these scenarios portray this trend reversing in the long-term, leading to an eventual improvement in environmental quality. The sustainable development scenarios, on the other hand, describe a future in which environmental quality improves throughout the scenario.
Table 2.2: Descriptive statistics for global futures scenario dimensions | |||||||
showing |
Number of scenarios
|
Range
|
Most common (mode)
|
Number of scenarios changes (compared to current
situation)
|
|||
|
|
|
Declining
|
Same
|
Rising
|
||
Total Scenarios |
124
|
|
|||||
Size of Economy |
102
|
collapse to high growth
|
Rising
|
24
|
13
|
65
|
|
Population Size |
84
|
collapse to high growth
|
Rising
|
10
|
5
|
69
|
|
Level of Technology |
98
|
stagnation & decline to very high
|
Rising
|
4
|
9
|
85
|
|
Degree of Globalization |
84
|
isolated communities to global civilization
|
More global
|
22
|
1
|
61
|
|
Government Intervention in Economy |
76
|
laissez-faire to strong regulation
|
Declining
|
36
|
9
|
31
|
|
Pollution |
85
|
very low to very high
|
Rising
|
34
|
3
|
48
|
|
International Income Equality |
99
|
very low to very high
|
Rising
|
32
|
16
|
50
|
|
Intranational Income Equality |
53
|
very low to very high
|
Rising
|
24
|
0
|
29
|
|
Degree of Conflict |
76
|
peace to many wars/world war
|
Rising
|
26
|
14
|
36
|
|
Fossil Fuel Use |
49
|
virtually zero to high
|
|
24
|
1
|
24
|
|
Energy Use |
51
|
low to high
|
Rising
|
14
|
0
|
37
|
|
GHG Emissions |
45
|
low to high
|
Rising
|
11
|
1
|
33
|
|
Climate Change (yes/no) |
0
|
no climate change to severe climate change
|
|
|
|
|
|
Structure of Economy |
50
|
agrarian/subsistence to quaternary (leisure)
|
Increasingly post-industrial
|
4
|
6
|
40
|
|
Percentage of Older Persons in Population |
11
|
primarily young population to ageing population
|
Rising
|
2
|
0
|
9
|
|
Migration |
30
|
low to high
|
Rising
|
10
|
0
|
20
|
|
Human Health |
38
|
worsening to improving
|
Improving
|
13
|
3
|
22
|
|
Degree of Competition |
41
|
low to high
|
Rising
|
14
|
0
|
27
|
|
Citizen Participation in Governance |
56
|
autocracy to meaningful participation
|
Rising
|
14
|
14
|
28
|
|
Community Vitality |
42
|
breakdown to very strong
|
Rising
|
12
|
0
|
30
|
|
Responsiveness of Institutions |
75
|
irrelevant to very responsive/citizen-driven
|
Improving
|
21
|
16
|
38
|
|
Social Equity |
38
|
low to high
|
|
19
|
1
|
18
|
|
Security Activity |
30
|
low to high
|
Rising
|
13
|
0
|
17
|
|
Conflict Resolution |
30
|
inadequate to successful
|
Improving
|
10
|
1
|
19
|
|
Technological Diffusion |
58
|
low to high
|
Improving
|
9
|
13
|
36
|
|
Rate of Innovation |
45
|
low to high
|
Rising
|
3
|
14
|
28
|
|
Renewable Resource Availability |
28
|
low to high
|
Declining
|
19
|
1
|
8
|
|
Non-renewable Resource Availability |
35
|
low to high
|
Rising
|
15
|
4
|
16
|
|
Food Availability |
45
|
low to high
|
Rising
|
16
|
4
|
25
|
|
Water Availability |
18
|
low to high
|
Declining
|
12
|
0
|
6
|
|
Biodiversity |
33
|
low to high
|
Declining
|
21
|
2
|
10
|
|
Threat of Collapse |
26
|
unlikely to likely
|
Rising
|
9
|
1
|
16
|
|
The scenarios were grouped together according to their main distinguishing features and were combined into four groups, according to whether they described futures in which, according to the scenario authors, conditions deteriorate (group 1), stay the same (group 2), or improve (groups 3 and 4). These groups are summarized in Table2.3.
Table 2.3: Global futures scenario groups | ||
Scenario group |
Scenario subgroups
|
Number of scenarios
|
1. Pessimistic Scenarios |
Breakdown: collapse of human society
|
5
|
Fractured World: deterioration into antagonistic regional
blocs
|
9
|
|
Chaos: instability and disorder
|
4
|
|
Conservative: world economic crash is succeeded by conservative
and risk-averse regime
|
2
|
|
2. Current Trends Scenarios | Conventional: no significant change from current and/or continuation of present-day trends |
12
|
High Growth: government facilitates business, leading to prosperity |
14
|
|
Asia Shift: economic power shifts from the West to Asia |
5
|
|
Economy Paramount: emphasis on economic values leads to deterioration in social and environmental conditions |
9
|
|
3. High-Tech Optimist Scenarios |
Cybertopia: information & communication technologies
facilitate individualistic, diverse and innovative world
|
16
|
Technotopia: technology solves all or most of humanitys
problems
|
5
|
|
4. Sustainable Development Scenarios |
Our Common Future: increased economic activity is made
to be consistent with improved equity and environmental quality
|
21
|
Low Consumption: conscious shift from consumerism
|
16
|
|
The scenarios in group 1 describe futures in which conditions deteriorate from present. Some of these scenarios describe a complete breakdown of human society, because of war, resource exhaustion, or economic collapse. Other scenarios describe a future in which the world is fractured into antagonistic blocs or in which society deteriorates into chaos. Still others describe futures in which the global economic system crashes and is succeeded by a conservative, risk-averse regime.
The scenarios in group 2 describe futures in which conditions do not change significantly from the present, or in which current trends continue. Many of these scenarios are reference scenarios, which are used by their authors to contrast other alternative future scenarios. In general, these scenarios are pessimistic; they describe futures in which many current problems get worse, although there may be improvement in some areas. This is particularly true of the Economy Paramount scenarios, which describe futures in which an emphasis on economic over other values leads to deteriorating environmental and social conditions. Other scenarios in group 2 describe a more optimistic future in which government and business co-operate to improve market conditions (generally through market liberalization and free trade), leading to an increase in prosperity. Several of the group 2 scenarios foresee a shift in economic power from the West to Asia.
The group 3 scenarios could be characterized as High-Tech Optimist scenarios. They describe futures in which technology and markets combine to produce increased prosperity and opportunity. Many of these scenarios describe Cybertopias in which information and communication technologies enable a highly individualistic, diverse, and innovative global community. Other group 3 scenarios describe worlds in which technological advances solve all or most of the problems facing humanity, including environmental problems.
The scenarios in group 4 are Sustainable Development scenarios. In general these scenarios envisage a change in society towards improved co-operation and democratic participation, with a shift in values favouring environment and equity. These scenarios can be subdivided into two subgroups. The first subgroup might be described as Our Common Future scenarios in which economic growth occurs, but is managed so that social and environmental objectives may also be achieved. The second subgroup could be characterized as Low Consumption sustainable development scenarios. They describe worlds in which economic activity and consumerism considerably decline in importance and, usually, population is stabilized at relatively low levels. Many of these scenarios also envisage increasing regional autonomy and self-reliance.
These groups correspond quite closely with the scenario archetypes that have been developed by the Global Scenarios Group (see Box 2.4). They also roughly correspond with the 4 new emission scenario families that were developed in the IPCC SRES (see Section 2.5.1 below) and the scenarios developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD, 1997).
Box 2.4. The Global Scenarios Group: Scenarios and Process A few organizations have been developing futures scenarios that incorporate both narrative and quantitative elements, including, for example, the Dutch Central Planning Bureau (CPB, 1992), the Millennium Project (Glenn and Gordon, 1998), and the Global Scenario Group (Gallopin et al., 1997). The latter is discussed here as an illustration of this kind of approach to scenario development. The Global Scenario Group (GSG) was convened by the Stockholm Environment Institute in 1995 as an international process to illuminate the requirements for a transition to global sustainability. It is a continuing and interdisciplinary process involving participants from diverse regional perspectives, rather than a single study. The GSG scenarios are holistic, developed both as narratives accounts of how human values, cultural choices, and institutional arrangements might unfold and detailed quantitative representations of social conditions such as level of poverty, economic patterns, and a wide range of environmental issues. The GSG framework includes three broad classes of scenarios for scanning the future Conventional Worlds, Barbarization, and Great Transitions with variants within each class. All are compatible with current patterns and trends, but have very different implications for society and the environment in the 21st century (Gallopin et al., 1997). In Conventional Worlds scenarios, global society develops gradually from current patterns and dominant tendencies, with development driven primarily by rapidly growing markets as developing countries converge towards the development model of advanced industrial (developed) countries. In Barbarization scenarios, environmental and social tensions spawned by conventional development are not resolved, humanitarian norms weaken, and the world becomes more authoritarian or more anarchic. Great Transitions explore visionary solutions to the sustainability challenge, which portray the ascendancy of new values, lifestyles, and institutions. Conventional Worlds is where much of the policy discussion
occurs, including most of the analysis of climate mitigation. The integrated
GSG approach situates the discussion of alternative emission scenarios
in the context of sustainable development, by making poverty reduction
an explicit scenario driver, and highlighting the links between climate
and other environment and resource issues (Raskin et al., 1998). The regional
distribution of emissions becomes an explicit consideration in scenario
design that is linked to poverty reduction, equity, and burden sharing
in environmentally-sound global development. By underscoring the interactions
between environmental and social goals, the policy strategies for addressing
climate are assessed for compatibility and synergy with a wider family
of actions for fostering sustainable development. |
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