The Global Scenario Group (GSG) was an international, interdisciplinary body convened in 1995 by the Tellus Institute and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) to develop scenarios for world development in the twenty-first century. Further development of the Great Transition scenarios has been carried on by the Great Transition Initiative (GTI).
The GSG's underlying scenario development work was rooted in the long-range integrated scenario analysis that Tellus Institute and Stockholm Environment Institute had undertaken through the PoleStar Project and its PoleStar System. Initially conceived in 1991 as a tool for integrated sustainability planning and long-range scenario analysis, the PoleStar System was inspired by the 1987 Brundtland Commission report Our Common Future, which first put the concept of sustainable development on the international agenda.
The work of the Global Scenario Group was widely adopted in high-level intergovernmental settings. The scenarios informed numerous international assessments, including the World Water Council's World Water Vision report in 1999–2000,[1] the OECD Environmental Outlook in 2001,[2] the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's greenhouse gas emission mitigation assessment in 2001,[3] the United Nations Environment Programme's Third GEO Report in 2002,[4] and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005.[5]
Members of the GSG included Tariq Banuri, Khaled Mohamed Fahmy, Tibor Farago, Nadezhda Gaponenko, Gilberto Gallopín, Gordon Goodman, Pablo Gutman, Allen Hammond, Roger Kasperson, Bob Kates, Laili Li, Sam Moyo, Madiodio Niasse, H.W.O. Okoth-Ogendo, Atiq Rahman, Paul Raskin, Setijati D. Sastrapradja, Katsuo Seiki, Nicholas Sonntag, Rob Swart, and Veerle Vandeweerd.[6]
Several of the GSG participants who actively participated in the IPCC assessments were recognized for contributing to the 2007 award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC.[7]
In 2002, the GSG formally summarized their scenario approach in an essay called Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead.[8]
The GSG scenario framework consists of six scenarios in three classes. In Conventional Worlds scenarios, the global system of the twenty-first century evolves without major surprises or discontinuities. This scenario class includes Market Forces, in which the task of resolving social and environmental crises is left to competitive markets, and Policy Reform, in which comprehensive and coordinated government action steps in. In Barbarization scenarios, emerging problems overwhelming the coping capacity of markets and policy reforms. This scenario class includes Breakdown, in which crises spiral out of control and usher in collapse, and Fortress World, in which elites safeguard their privilege to protect themselves from the surrounding misery. Finally, in Great Transitions scenarios, new socioeconomic arrangements and value shifts provide visionary solutions for a more socially and environmentally sustainable world. This scenario class includes Eco-Communalism, which is based on bio-regionalism and localism, and a New Sustainability Paradigm, which centers on a more humane and equitable global civilization.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "World Water Council - Vision Report Chapter 3".
- ^ "Highlights of the OECD Environmental Outlook" (PDF). p. 7. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
- ^ "IPCC Third Assessment Report - Climate Change 2001 - Working Group III: Mitigation".
- ^ Global Environment Outlook Scenario Framework: Background Paper for UNEP's Third Global Environment Outlook Report. UNEP. Division of early warning and assessment. 2004. ISBN 978-92-807-2461-5.
- ^ "Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: A Framework for Assessment - Chapter 7" (PDF). p. 168.
- ^ Global Scenario Group. "About the GSG." Accessed January 9, 2024. https://gsg.org/about-the-gsg.html.
- ^ "Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007".
- ^ Paul Raskin, Tariq Banuri, Gilberto Gallopín, Pablo Gutman, Al Hammond, Robert Kates, and Rob Swart, Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead (Boston: Stockholm Environment Institute, 2002), http://www.greattransition.org/gt-essay. See also its sequel: Paul Raskin, Journey to Earthland: The Great Transition to Planetary Civilization. Boston: Tellus Institute, 2016, http://www.greattransition.org/publication/journey-to-earthland.
External links
edit- Global Scenario Group – An international initiative to examine alternative futures
- Great Transition Essay
- Branch Points: Global Scenarios and Human Choice
- Bending the Curve: Toward Global Sustainability