First look at Livable Future Priorities
A condensed overview of stakeholder insights shared to the Consultation on Priorities for a Livable Future
Citizens’ Climate International initiated the Consultation on Priorities for a Livable Future as a way to gather insight about the experiences, values, needs, and aspirations of people in diverse circumstances, around the world. The goal is to allow participants in the Consultation to input into the 2024 Reinventing Prosperity Report and the United Nations Summit of the Future.
Consultation was key to CCI’s own background of work on the Pathway to Paris, and shaped the PARIS Principles for effective, efficient, equitable carbon pricing and international cooperation.
Consultation was also key to the creation, in the midst of the 2020 COVID pandemic emergency, of the Principles for Reinventing Prosperity.
Some of our team and allies in our wider network were part of the Policy and Strategy Group for the World We Want, which helped to contextualize inputs from millions of people as part of the establishment of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by UN member states in September 2015.
We also wish to note that our 2022 Reinventing Prosperity Report outlined a ‘Capital to Communities‘ approach to participatory design and mobilization of climate finance and related incentives and resources.
Participants in the Earth Diplomacy Leadership workshops held this May, ahead of the mid-year UN Climate Change negotiations, identified critical action insights for negotiators to address.
A general insight running through the Consultation responses is that we find ourselves at a crucial moment of risk and fragility, where 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.
It is a warning, because—as the insights above acknowledge—we are living beyond planetary boundaries, and that cannot continue.
It is an opportunity, because resolving that fragility in ways that are evidence-based, scalable, inclusive, and sustainable, can create societies that are more resilient, more secure, more liberated, and more prosperous.
The following is a condensed list of insights that represent stakeholders’ call for action to secure a livable future for all people and for our planet’s life-support systems.
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.
A livable human society requires a livable climate. A consistent future vision was one where we improve human experience by improving the behavior of nations, industries, and local economies, toward nature, watersheds, and the climate system.
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. Without adequate cooperation, and institutions and mechanisms designed to reward and advance cooperation, the already worsening climate and biosphere crisis will likely get worse, while resources are squandered dealing with chaos instead of smart solutions.
Planetary boundaries are security measures. Respondents are aware that we are breaching planetary boundaries, and that this means we are making Earth less hospitable to the lifestyles we have come to expect. The local and regional benefits of sustainable planetary systems include food security, economic development, opportunities for improvement of the human condition, security, and peace. Operating within planetary boundaries is vital for securing a peaceful and just future for people, communities, and nations.
A sustainable future is vibrant, active, mobile, and health-building. Visions for a livable future include vibrant cities and communities, with extensive tree cover, lush natural spaces, restored and sustained biodiversity, and natural spaces integrated into the human environment, for recreation, for cycling and self-powered mobility, with cleaner air and healthier people, spending more time engaging with society in a way that is healthy, enjoyable, and safe.
Local decision-making can be decisive. For such healthy, vibrant, active, green communities to exist, local decision-making needs to avoid maladaptation—the costly condition in which decisions about future experience fail to manifest the optimal outcomes from everyday industry, ingenuity, and climate crisis response. Avoiding maladaptation means thinking carefully about how climate dynamics and the health of nature tie into everyday experience, and recognizing that communities are less livable when there is less access to nature. Sustainable cities and communities are essential to the health and wellbeing of people, national economies, and natural life-support systems, including the climate.
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.
Accelerated upgrading of practices must be the norm. Respondents recognize that for all of the better future visions they conceive, and across the SDGs, we are behind the curve. The IPCC 6th Assessment Report finds we will breach 1.5ºC by 2040, and will begin to lose critical stabilizing structures of the climate system above 1.5ºC, if not before. These include mountain glaciers, polar ice thickness, ocean currents, ocean carbon sinking capacity, and stable polar vortices. A climate-resilient economy must, then, be characterized by constant upgrading and rapid implementation of the most promising sustainable practices.
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.
Wealth is not the core measure of wellbeing. Respondents shared a variety of future visions and values statements that highlighted a critical gap in our political discussions of equality. Universal opportunity and generalized wellbeing do not mean everyone has the same income and there is no competition for economic benefits; equality can mean equally able to access healthy food, quality education, health services, and to participate fully as an informed, engaged member of one’s community and of the wider society, with the same expectation of safety and security. Livable future policies can focus on equality in terms of freedom from harm and opportunity to excel, recognizing that where one person’s rights are degraded, all rights are less safe.
Valuing nature, health, and safety, can expand wealth for everyone. Respondents called for policies, investments, infrastructure, business practices, and community life that manifest the value of nature, health, and safety. This means co-designing development plans and urban infrastructure, allowing for more participatory policy-making, and development of new metrics that use data to show progress in these areas of value creation.
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.
Do well by doing good. The Triple Planetary Crisis—climate change, pervasive pollution, and loss of nature and biodiversity—is understood to be driven by decision-making that allows for ill-advised, poorly designed, harm-spreading business practices. Respondents want to see more levers of action—for consumers, policy-makers, investors, and visionary new businesses—to reward those who provide goods and services of high quality, without emitting toxic or climate-disrupting chemicals into the environment, without destroying ecosystems, and without harming human health.
Good governance is imperative. Respondents recognize the need for local, national, and cooperative international governance that acts to reduce harm, eliminate risk, and spread wellbeing. Allowing or not allowing unaccountable harm to innocents is widely understood to be a measure of the quality of governance and the legitimacy of institutions. Transparency and zero tolerance for corruption are seen as essential to successfully addressing major challenges at all levels.
We highlight these preliminary insights to show there are structural implications for policy, governance, finance, technology development and sharing, and for progress tracking systems. We also recognize that not all inputs are represented directly by this distilled list of insights, and further inputs are still coming in.
Please share the Consultation link with friends, family, colleagues, and with networks you feel would like to contribute to this report. Look for the 2024 Reinventing Prosperity Report to be released just ahead of the UN Summit of the Future, on Thursday, September 19, through the Climate Value Exchange.