Jorgen Randers Forecasts The World In 2052

 Futurism

Forty years ago, the Club of Rome launched The Limits to Growth study that addressed the grand question of how humans would adapt to the physical limitations of planet Earth. Now one of the authors of that study, Jorgen Randers has followed up with a look at the world in 2052.

In his new book, 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years Jorgen Randers one of the co-authors of Limits to Growth, issues a progress report and makes a forecast for the next forty years. 


Forty years ago, The Limits to Growth study addressed the grand question of how humans would adapt to the physical limitations of planet Earth. It predicted that during the first half of the 21st century the ongoing growth in the human ecological footprint would stop-either through catastrophic "overshoot and collapse"-or through well-managed "peak and decline."

Randers is professor of climate strategy at the BI Norwegian Business School, where he works on climate issues and scenario analysis. He was previously president of BI and deputy director general of WWF International (World Wildlife Fund) in Switzerland. He lectures internationally on sustainable development and especially climate, and is a nonexecutive member of a number of corporate boards. He sits on the sustainability councils of British Telecom in the UK and the Dow Chemical Company in the United States. 

For Randers forecast, he asked dozens of experts to weigh in with their best predictions on how our economies, energy supplies, natural resources, climate, food, fisheries, militaries, political divisions, cities, psyches, and more will take shape in the coming decades. He then synthesized those scenarios into a global forecast of life as we will most likely know it in the years ahead.

Randers raises interesting questions: How many people will the planet be able to support? Will the belief in endless growth crumble? Will runaway climate change take hold? Where will quality of life improve, and where will it decline? Using painstaking research, and drawing on contributions from more than 30 thinkers in the field, he concludes that:

• - While the process of adapting humanity to the planet's limitations has started, the human response could be too slow.
• - The current dominant global economies, particularly the United States, will stagnate. Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa and ten leading emerging economies (BRIC Nations) will progress.
• - But there will still be 3 billion poor in 2052.
• - China will be a success story, because of its ability to act.
• - Global population will peak in 2042, because of falling fertility in urban areas
• - Global GDP will grow much slower than expected, because of slower productivity growth in mature economies.
• - CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere will continue to grow and cause +2°C in 2052; temperatures will reach +2.8°C in 2080, which may well trigger self-reinforcing climate change.

The good news: we will see impressive advances in resource efficiency, and an increasing focus on human well-being rather than on per capita income growth. But this change might not come as we expect. Future growth in population and GDP, for instance, will be constrained in surprising ways-by rapid fertility decline as result of increased urbanization, productivity decline as a result of social unrest, and continuing poverty among the poorest 2 billion world citizens. Runaway global warming, too, is likely.

So, how do we prepare for the years ahead? With heart, fact, and wisdom, Randers guides us along a realistic path into the future and discusses what readers can do to ensure a better life for themselves and their children during the increasing turmoil of the next forty years.

By 33rd Square

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