Beyond the Horizon: Priorities for a Livable Future

The 2024 Reinventing Prosperity Report — a contribution from the Climate Value Exchange and partners to the United Nations Summit of the Future

When the COVID pandemic shut down societies around the world in early 2020, it became clear we needed to evaluate how well our institutions and economic structures are set up to deal with the challenges of the 21st century. While we have made great progress in science, technology, trade, and development, the industrial scale of our systems has generate new threats, new kinds of competition, and the potential for interactions between crisis-level events to evolve into unprecedented threats to human security.

We established the Principles for Reinventing Prosperity as an expression of a global conversation about this problem. From the fiscal policy and human development standpoint, the core aim can be stated as prioritizing levers of action that will reduce macrocritical risk. That means reducing the likelihood that economy-shaping forces will generate pervasive unmanageable cost and risk to wellbeing and shared prosperity.

• Our 2021 report noted the terrible spread of hunger due to COVID-related supply-chain disruptions, highlighted the IPCC finding that we are on track to breach 1.5ºC in even the most optimistic scenario, called for greater inclusion in decision-making, and emphasized rooted, distributed systems to operationalize major commitments.
• Our 2022 report called for a participatory ‘Capital to Communities’ process for co-designing, deploying, tracking, and building on sustainable finance interventions.
• Our 2023 report focused on the need to recognize, define, and activate the Right to Resilience, as an operational imperative. We noted that not honoring that right is already bringing unthinkable, unaffordable costs, that multidimensional climate cooperation and catalytic Good Food Finance can change trade and economic options and elevate resilience-building priorities.

The 2024 Report

In 2024, we note three major questions that can shape how readily any given society, including at the local level, is able to act on the Principles:

1. How multifaceted and fine-tuned are the metrics used by decision-makers to determine whether a given choice increases or erodes overall resilience?
2. Are incentives that shape flows of new investment putting destructive or sustainable practices first?
3. Are institutions-in the public, private, multilateral, and philanthropic sectors-engaging with stakeholders to determine which options are best suited to improve health and wellbeing for people and for the natural systems that sustain life?

We have built these questions into the structure of a global consultation on Priorities for a Livable Future, because we believe it is essential to bring outside voices into the halls of power and to provide local, values-based insights to intergovernmental meetings like the United Nations Summit of the Future. This report is our contribution to the Summit, and offers a window into how stakeholders-from a diverse range of national, local, and socio-economic circumstances-see our duty to future generations and the promise of enhanced multilateral cooperation.

Navigate the entire 2024 Reinventing Prosperity Report as an interactive resource library. The report brings together and distills insights from stakeholders in 23 countries across 6 continents, with the aim of supporting a future in which systems are sustainable, just, and locally rooted and relevant.

Each of the eight chapters is summarized below, and detailed in a linked article.

Guiding Insights for a Crucial Moment of Risk and Fragility

Respondents to the Consultation on Priorities for a Livable Future-who contributed local perspectives and aspirations from 23 countries, across the Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania-shared a general sense that:

• We find ourselves at a crucial moment of risk and fragility. Small decisions (including delays) could have great consequence-not just for our own access to future wellbeing, but for generations far into the future, and for the composition and health of life on Earth. This awareness of fragility is both a warning and an opportunity.
• All institutions need to upgrade their standards for the future, so that they do well by doing good, especially where there is opportunity to reduce the triple planetary crisis and prevent vulnerability, poverty, hunger, and disease.

The following insights provide a strong outline of the overall call for action from stakeholders around the world:

• Climate change impacts are piling up. A prominent insight among contributors was that climate change impacts are happening now, with costs and risks accumulating, and that some further destabilization of the climate system is “baked in”, because some effects of global heating take time to materialize.
• Cooperative problem-solving is essential. Respondents noted that we are already in a deficit situation, with regard to climate stabilization and climate-resilient development. A consistent insight was the need for nations to work together to innovate, to improve enabling environments, to support investment flowing to better practices that foster environmental sustainability, inclusive integral human development, social and economic justice, and shared prosperity that consistently respects human rights.
• Human dignity is linked to sustainable investment. SDG8 focusing on Decent Work was the least highlighted SDG; this seems to be linked to respondents seeing better practices and better living conditions, with reduced poverty, reduced inequalities, improved health, and better education, as naturally leading to work that is more enjoyable, better paid, and more dignified. To reach that point, where decent work is more widely available, investment in sustainable practices is urgently needed.
• Unsustainable investment is waste. There is widespread agreement that investing in activities that cause harm is wasteful. By reconfiguring value considerations to account for preventable harm and reward sustainable practices, the overall pool of wealth flowing into human enterprise, community-building, and wellbeing can grow, creating an economy that is more abundant, with more good for all.
• 1.5ºC is just a start. Long-term visions for a livable future included the insight that we should, collectively, work to restore a pre-industrial climate. That does not mean leaving industry behind; it means making industry smarter and more sustainable, and sharing benefits more equitably so more people are empowered to make values-based decisions and prevent runaway resource depletion. This has implications for the global goals on decarbonization and on adaptation, and it suggests climate stability and a zero-harm standard should be top of mind in trade negotiations and financial innovation efforts.

Other insights highlighted by respondents include:

• A livable human society requires a livable climate.
• Planetary boundaries are security measures.
• A sustainable future is vibrant, active, mobile, and health-building.
• Local decision-making can be decisive.
• Accelerated upgrading of practices must be the norm.
• Wealth is not the core measure of wellbeing.
• Valuing nature, health, and safety, can expand wealth for everyone.
• Success in supporting human health includes the right to safe transit.
• New kinds of destabilization are on the horizon.
• Good governance is imperative.

GUIDING INSIGHTS, IN FULL

The Zero Harm Standard

Law has legitimacy when it serves a universal human interest, provides protection for vulnerable groups, emerges from or is responsive to stakeholders and constituents, and is shaped through representative process. There is a duty to honor universal human rights and human dignity, including the right to safety and security. So, we ask that public agencies, legislatures, intergovernmental bodies, and private investors and regulators, consistently ask whether their actions honor these transcendent standards, and actively support the upholding of a zero harm standard.

Article 7.1 of the Paris Agreement:

“[establishes] the global goal on adaptation of enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change, with a view to contributing to sustainable development and ensuring an adequate adaptation response in the context of the temperature goal referred to in Article 2.”

We are living now with significant, costly, preventable harm due to human-caused climate disruption. If global heating reaches 1.5ºC, that harm and cost will be far greater. Dozens of countries will likely be unable to sustain their finances and everyday economies, in such a world. Working toward a global goal of zero preventable harm to people and nature could be the signal adaptation and resilience standard around which nations negotiate not only climate law, but trade, development, and finance standards, and cooperation on technology and security.

ABOUT ZERO HARM

Redefine Risk to Foster Resilience

EMPHASIZING THE NEED FOR COORDINATED EFFORT TO COUNTER INJUSTICE, TO REDUCE VULNERABILITY AND EXPAND OPPORTUNITY, AND TO FOSTER INCLUSIVE DECISION-MAKING.

The 2023 State of the Climate report found that:

“By the end of this century, an estimated 3 to 6 billion individuals — approximately one-third to one-half of the global population — might find themselves confined beyond the livable region, encountering severe heat, limited food availability, and elevated mortality rates because of the effects of climate change (Lenton et al. 2023).”

Because extractive industry has been the standard practice throughout the industrial age, there has long been concern among both business and government leaders that a zero harm standard would lead to major legal complications for leading companies and supply chains that provide basic goods for everyday existence. Those that benefit from the status quo often use this concern about transition risk to stall policy action altogether.

Rapidly rising disaster response costs and premiums placed on imported goods in a climate-disrupted economy lead to debt distress and destabilization.

• US financial regulators warn that climate costs will destabilize the financial sector and the wider economy, putting at risk the stability even of the nation with the world’s largest overall economic output.
• The Potsdam Institute warned earlier this year that already baked in costs will reach $38 trillion per year by 2050.
• We cited this finding in last year’s Reinventing Prosperity report on The Right to Resilience, noting that “In such a world, all of our assumptions about health, security, life expectancy, economic development, and the durability of institutions, will be long forgotten.”
• And so, “The right to resilience-like human rights in general-is a golden thread that can reset the baseline for all our climate ambitions.”

Decision-makers-from government agencies to business leaders and major banks to small businesses and individual consumers-need to be able to see whether a given product or service provides some material benefit to the urgent global project of reducing risk and enhancing resilience. That means multidimensional metrics, based on data systems that connect Earth science insights to financial information, for instance, need to be developed, deployed, and mainstreamed.

ABOUT REDEFINING RISK

Update Innovation Timelines

TO AVOID DEVASTATING CLIMATE BREAKDOWN, WE NEED TO LIMIT GLOBAL HEATING TO 1.5ºC; WORSENING IMPACTS AND LATEST SCIENCE SAY WE NEED TO MOVE MUCH FASTER.

The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change called for reducing global heating emissions to 1990 levels no later than the year 2000. That did not happen. In 2015, the Paris Agreement saw 196 nations agree to meet the Convention mandate to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” in a “nationally determined” way, in line with the temperature threshold for danger. In 2018, the IPCC confirmed that global heating above 1.5ºC would be too dangerous.

Since then, nations, businesses, and financial institutions, have developed science-based targets of net-zero in line with 1.5ºC, generally aiming for net-zero by 2050. The global standard is generally thought to be around 50% emissions reductions by 2030. All of these numbers can change dramatically, depending on whether powerful methane emissions are contained or getting worse. In July, new evidence was published showing methane emissions from US oil and gas operations are four times higher than acknowledged.

All of this must also be considered in light of the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report (AR6), which found we will breach 1.5ºC even in the scenario with the most ambitious global climate action, though in that case restoration of natural carbon sinks (forests, soils, and marine ecosystems) might get us back to 1.4ºC later this century. The AR6 also included global consensus science that shows we will likely breach 1.5ºC by 2040 and that above 1.5ºC, we will likely lose climate stabilizing geophysical structures like polar ice, mountain glaciers, and some ocean currents.

ABOUT ACCELERATED ACTION

Food Systems Connect to Everything

FOOD SYSTEMS INCLUDE EVERYTHING FROM WATERSHEDS AND ECOSYSTEMS THAT MAKE AGRICULTURE POSSIBLE, THE FOOD YOU PUT ON YOUR TABLE, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN.

We cannot conceive of, work toward, or expect to enjoy a livable future, if we do not establish, mainstream, and secure sustainable food systems.

• Food price shocks are one of the primary destabilizing drivers of security breakdown at local, national, and international levels.
• Lack of redundancy and flexibility can lead to sudden-onset food shocks. Even in the United States, which produces far more food than its people require and is one of the world’s leading exporters of agricultural goods, food insecurity skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns of 2020. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted the flow of major agricultural exports to much of the world, contributing to another surge in global food insecurity through 2022 and 2023.
• The Food System Economics Commission that unsustainable food systems have already cost the world $128 trillion since the Paris Agreement was signed in early 2016. This overwhelming cost and waste distorts financial and economic dynamics at both micro and macro scales. And most of the hardship is borne by those with the least wealth, including many who work to produce food for everyone else.
• As climate risk and cost increase and compound each other’s effects, it is increasingly important to correct these market failures and ensure new investment improves these distortionary effects.

Communities large and small, as well as individual smallholders in remote areas, can benefit from structured co-investments to drive mainstream finance into health-building, climate-resilient and sustainable food systems. While stakeholders welcome global efforts by intergovernmental agencies and new funds and facilities to end hunger, reduce food insecurity, and expand sustainable agriculture, they also recognize that local food systems value initiatives are needed-to build capacity, share insights, steer investment, and establish a more solid and sustainable foundation for a secure supply of healthy food.

ABOUT FOOD SYSTEMS

Solidarity is a Liberating Force

EMPHASIZING THE NEED FOR COORDINATED EFFORT TO COUNTER INJUSTICE, TO REDUCE VULNERABILITY AND EXPAND OPPORTUNITY, AND TO FOSTER INCLUSIVE DECISION-MAKING.

The urgent pressures tied to climate-related politics and geopolitics are partly rooted in the problem of still expanding emissions and steadily worsening and compounding climate disruption. Climate urgency is also driven by the need to reduce the very real, personal physical danger already affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world and putting government budgets and fiscal sustainability at risk. Food systems are facing increasing risks of short-term shocks and long-term collapse; the drivers of conflict are becoming harder to control, as global heating makes more regions hard to live in.

But there is another kind of urgency linked to climate geopolitics, and that is the need of everyone who depends on responsible governance (i.e. everyone) to know that institutions can be trusted to:

1. Serve the public interest honestly and in good faith;
2. Identify real-world problems and set clear, practical, and ambitious goals to solve them;
3. Honor transcendent human rights of both today’s constituents-to whom they owe the benefits of their time in office-and of future generations, who cannot speak for themselves;
4. Follow through on commitments-especially those that carry existential meaning for the rest of humankind.

Read about why good governance is mission-critical and how solidarity is a liberating force.

ABOUT SOLIDARITY

Activate the SDGs to improve lives, livelihoods & security

STAKEHOLDERS’ INPUTS ON THE 17 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS ADOPTED BY 193 NATIONS IN SEPTEMBER 2015 AND HOW TO ACCELERATE PROGRESS AT HOME AND ABROAD.

When we asked for input from advocates, stakeholders, and people in diverse conditions around the world, in communities large and small, and facing many different kinds of risk and vulnerability, we knew that we would be hearing about people’s values, fears, and aspirations. We knew we would hear about local conditions and how particular hopes translate into improvements for whole societies. What we did not know is that we would have solid, resonant, personal insights about all 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by 193 nations 9 years ago.

Contributors clearly called for recognition that, as was the spirit of the agreement in September 2015: These goals are for all countries and all communities, both locally and cooperatively. Click below to read a selection of what respondents shared about each of the Goals, distilled for flow.

ABOUT THE SDGS

Make Sustainable Finance the Mainstream Norm

EMPHASIZING THE NEED FOR COORDINATED EFFORT TO COUNTER INJUSTICE, TO REDUCE VULNERABILITY AND EXPAND OPPORTUNITY, AND TO FOSTER INCLUSIVE DECISION-MAKING.

The financial architecture of the 21st century economy is facing a far-reaching practical challenge that has cosmological implications. Scientific study of planetary boundaries and ongoing climate disruption reveals that unsustainable investments are not viable strategies for setting up whole societies for future success. As a matter of practical everyday business, financial decision-makers need new tools to better assess what kind of value is being created by any given investment decision.

Making this shift to sustainable finance as the everyday mainstream catalyst for new economic activity, innovation, and enterprise, will bring with it the largest opportunity for generalized return on investment in world history. We know this, because the costs of unsustainable practices are so high, and because a best-case outcome would see small economic actors improving their range of choices, their access to capital, and their ability to be of service to the wider economy.

We welcome the Pact for the Future and commitment to future generations

The Pact for the Future was agreed by member states of the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, September 23, 2024

The Pact for the Future includes 56 action commitments from national governments across the world, as well as a Global Ditigal Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations. The Pact aims to support a transformation in global governance, in service of cooperative solutions to worsening global challenges and an overall transition to sustainable development as the everyday experience of people in all nations. The Declaration on Future Generations also calls for the promotion of intergenerational solidarity, recognition of the right to peace, justice, and inclusive prosperity, and for actions that will make possible an experience of sustainable prosperity for future generations.

A note on good governance and cooperation

Not only have governments made big commitments to transform industries, economies, financial priorities, and the everyday risk and resilience calculus; they have already agreed to ways of working that can make all of this work in the best interests of everyone. The Paris Agreement calls for limiting global heating to 1.5ºC, preventing undue danger to people and nature, aligning financial flows with the overall agreement, and proactive international cooperation to set all of us up for success.

Article 6.8 of the Paris Agreement invites national governments to accelerate local, national, and global progress by combining “mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology transfer and capacity-building” to reduce climate risk, drive sustainable development, eradicate poverty, and foster robust climate-smart private sector economies. Not taking this opportunity raises serious questions; people are calling for better, faster action to weave the best possible future into their everyday experience.

Originally published at http://climatevalue.exchange on September 23, 2024.