By Global Scenarios Group, Stockholm Environment Institute, 1998
The GSG scenarios are based on a two-tier hierarchy. Conventional Worlds, Barbarization and Great Transitions represent fundamentally different social visions. Within each of these classes, a range of variants is considered. The GSG’s analysis has focused on the six scenarios described below.
Conventional Worlds
This scenario is a story of a market-driven world in the 2lst Century in which demographic, economic, environmental and technological trends unfold without major surprise. Continuity, globalization and convergence are key characteristics of world development — institutions gradually adjust without major ruptures, international economic integration proceeds apace and the socioeconomic patterns of poor regions converge slowly toward the model of the rich regions. Despite economic growth, extreme income disparity between rich and poor countries, and between the rich and poor within countries, remains a critical social trend. Environmental transformation and degradation is a progressively more significant factor in global affairs.
- Market Forces. This variant incorporates mid-range population and development projections, and typical technological change assumptions. The problem of resolving the social and environmental stress arising from global population and economic growth is left to the self-correcting logic of competitive markets.
- Policy Reform. Policy Reform adds strong, comprehensive and coordinated government action, as called for in many policy-oriented discussions of sustainability, to achieve greater social equity and environmental protection. The political will evolves for strengthening management systems and rapidly diffusing environmentally-friendly technology, in the context of proactive pursuit of sustainability as a strategic priority.
Barbarization
These scenarios envision the grim possibility that the social, economic and moral underpinnings of civilization deteriorate, as emerging problems overwhelm the coping capacity of both markets and policy reforms.The major driving forces propelling this scenario include worldwide political and economic changes, inequity and persistent poverty, growing populations, environmental degradation and technological innovation. Following the breakdown of the Soviet Union, capitalism is ascendant everywhere. A critical uncertainty, however, is whether the countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe will make a successful transition to market-based economies and democratic political systems.The resentment of poor people rises. Increased exposure to global media and tourism in underdeveloped regions accentuates the immense differences in life styles between rich and poor. The conviction festers that the poor have been cheated out of development, that their options have been pre-empted by the wealthy. Among intellectuals in developing countries, awareness grows that high consumption life styles will not be available to all who might aspire to it. A new social actor emerges: educated, downwardly mobile and angry. Social polarization feeds off the disenchantment of the rich and resentment of the poor.Technological advance initially continues. But scientific and technical knowledge becomes increasingly a private commodity and decreasingly part of the public domain, slowing progress on fundamental problems.Severe social and military conflict spread. Social tensions fester in the context of deepening socio-economic inequity, increased morbidity, and reduced access to natural resources.
- The Breakdown. In this variant, the vicious cycle of chaos, conflict and desperation spiral out of control. The security apparatus within remaining privileged areas cannot contain the tide of violence from disaffected individuals, terrorist organizations, ethno religious groups, economic factions, and organized crime. Collapse of civil order becomes widespread, as populations become increasingly desperate and governments weaken. Refugees fleeing from chaotic zones destabilize neighbouring areas, inadvertently contributing to widening waves of disorder. To stem migration, increasing resources are devoted to police powers, border security, and control of the activities of citizens. The global economic, finance and governance systems founder, though the media lingers to spread fresh news of upheaval. The retreat of globalization is particularly devastating for industrial economies highly dependent on trade and imported natural resources. The result is raising unemployment, economic depression, political instability, and outbreaks of civil disorder, even in rich countries. This self-reinforcing chain of events eventually leads to a general disintegration of social, cultural, and political institutions, deindustrialization (to varying degrees in different regions), and in many regions a return to semi-tribal or feudal societal structures. With the collapse of markets and investment generally, technological progress halts -- and the level of technological capability regresses. Population eventually begins to decrease as mortality rates surge with economic collapse and environmental degradation. Many couples, deeply pessimistic about the future, choose not to bring children into the world. In a bitter irony, equity increases but only because everybody gets poorer. Breakdown conditions could persist for many decades before social evolution to higher levels of civilization again becomes possible.
- The Fortress World. In the Fortress World variant, powerful regional and international actors comprehend the perilous forces leading to Breakdown. They are able to muster a sufficiently organized response to protect their own interests and to create lasting alliances between them. Arising within the cynical and pessimistic social mood of Barbarization conditions, these alliances are not directed at improving the general well-being, but at protecting the privileges of rich and powerful elites. This is viewed as a matter of necessity in a world in which wealth, resources and conventional governance systems are eroding. The elite retreat to protected enclaves, mostly in historically rich nations, but in favoured enclaves in poor nations, as well.The authorities employ active means of repression to guarantee exclusive access to needed resources (such as oil fields and key mines) and to stop further degradation of the global commons of air and ocean resources. Draconian measures are required to control social unrest and migration. Strategic mineral reserves, freshwater and important biological resources are put under military control.
Great Transitions
Great Transitions explore visionary solutions to the sustainability challenge, including new socioeconomic arrangements and fundamental changes in values. They depict a transition to a society that preserves natural systems, provides high levels of welfare through material sufficiency and equitable distribution, and enjoys a strong sense of social solidarity. Population levels are stabilized at moderate levels and material flows through the economy are radically reduced through lower consumerism and massive use of green technologies.
- The Eco-Communalism. Eco-communalism envisions a patchwork of semi-isolated and self-reliant communities. If this world were ever to occur, it might be quite sustainable with high equity, low economic growth, and low populations. Advances in the understanding of human behaviour, in psychological dynamics and in holistic education could minimize the likelihood of the emergence of aggressive behaviour.Nevertheless, a major threat to sustainability could come from the possibility that some of the more or less isolated communities develop into aggressive, expansionist forces which attempt to dominate neighboring communities. That said, it is difficult to identify a plausible trajectory leading from the present situation to Eco-communalism. The acceleration of globalization and the complexity of modern economies suggest that, even if there were a transition to such a society, it is likely to be mediated through a series of other social formations.
- New Sustainability Paradigm. In the New Sustainability Paradigm, equity and sustainability, rather than economic growth, come to define development. Material sufficiency becomes the preferred lifestyle, while ostentatious consumption is viewed as primitive and a sign of bad taste. Some transnational corporations accept -- even advocate, in some notable cases -- the need for general limits and constraints around a new business ethic of eco-efficiency. Others resist change, but under popular pressure organized locally, nationally, and globally, governments and corporations begin negotiations around a New Planetary Deal. Building on intentional reductions in material consumption in rich countries, agreements are reached on international mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth. These transfers are tied to voluntary reductions in family size in countries with fast growing populations and to meeting globally agreed environmental targets.
