Was Malthus Right After All? Can We Achieve Sustainable Development? Prof. Jeffrey D. Sachs

1. Was Malthus Right After All? Can We Achieve Sustainable Development? Prof. Jeffrey D. Sachs Institute of Development Studies University of Sussex, Brighton December 11, 2008

2. FOUR DEEP DRIVERS OF GLOBALIZATION TODAY • Ecosystem Pressures in the Anthropocene • Climate change; water stress; food supply; species extinction • Demographic Change • Continued rapid population growth; Rebalancing global populations (e.g. Africa, Islam); changing internal population balances; urbanization; aging; migration • Global Catch-Up Growth • The Economics of pent-up growth. The Asian Growth Catch Up. Prospects for Global Growth • Fragile States • Globalization as a cause of failed states? (e.g. Brain Drain) • Globalization as an amplifier of the costs of failed states

3. The Two Senses of the Malthusian Threat: Regions Trapped in Extreme Poverty and Hunger, Notably Sub-Saharan Africa Global Society Facing Ecological Limits and the Possibility of Massive Overshooting and Reversals

5. 70,000 Billions, $USD PPP

6. ECOSYSTEM STRESS: The Epoch of the Anthropocene

7. Fig. 2. Human dominance or alteration of several major components of the Earth system, expressed as (from left to right) percentage of the land surface transformed (5); percentage of the current atmospheric CO2 concentration that results from human action (17); percentage of accessible surface fresh water used (20); percentage of terrestrial N fixation that is human-caused (28); percentage of plant species in Canada that humanity has introduced from elsewhere (48); percentage of bird species on Earth that have become extinct in the past two millennia, almost all of them as a consequence of human activity (42); and percentage of major marine fisheries that are fully exploited, overexploited, or depleted (14).

8. The Three Great Drivers of Anthropogenic Change Food Energy Industrial Pollutants (including those linked to food and energy)

10. Dead Zone In Gulf of Mexico Thresholds of Hypoxia in Marine Ecosystems, PNAS, 2008 Vaquer-Sunyer and Duarte

12. Stern Review

14. Kg Per Person, Annual

16. World Bank World Development Indicators

17. Demography: The Continuing Population Threat

21. “Western Islam” = North Africa, the Middle East, and Turkey

24. The Age of Convergence Economics of Catch-Up Growth

25. Forces of Divergence (1750 – 1950) Concentration of Technological Capacity + Resource Endowments + Political Conquest Forces of Convergence (1950 - 2050) Diffusion of Technological Capacity + Sovereignty + Globalization

29. Projections of GNP in US, China, and India

30. FRAGILE STATES IN AN INTERCONNECTED WORLD

31. Ending Poverty Through Targeted Investments: Agriculture Health Education Infrastructure: roads, rail, power, water and sanitation, connectivity Business Institutions Community Institutions The Millennium Development Goals The Millennium Villages and Millennium Cities

34. The Sahel

36. El-Fasher Weather Station

37. Pathways to Sustainable Development Global Goals Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Health for All (AIDS, TB, Malaria, others) Biological Diversity (UNCBD) Climate Change (UNFCCC) Desertification (UNCCD) “Directed” Technological Change Food, Energy, Pollutants Population Stabilization Sustainable Urbanization Financing Global Public Goods (Who will pay and how?) Global Ethics: Human Rights and the Human Future

38. The Need For Technological Advances The Inadequacy of current technologies Energy systems Food systems Industrial ecology (pollutants, wastes, resource uses) Incentives for RDD&D For the poor For the commons For resource scarcity Creating an Innovation System for Sustainable Technologies Patents, public financing, philanthropy, open-source, technology transfer mechanisms

39. The Role of Global Institutions Which Institutions? Supranational treaties (CBD, UNFCCC, UNCLOS) Global organizations (UN, Bretton Woods Institutions, WTO) Regional Governments (EU, AU, NAFTA) Global Financing? ODA, “New Financing Mechanisms” such as UNITAID, IFFm, Advanced Market Commitments, Carbon Levies, Tobin Tax

40. The Role of Social Knowledge, Culture, and Values Sustainable lifestyles urban life attitudes to equality and inequality (gender, class, race, nation, geography) attitudes towards fertility attitudes towards migration and cultural diversity attitudes towards the future

41. Can We Afford Sustainable Development? Climate Change Mitigation (≈ 1 percent of GNP) Climate Change Adaptation (< 0.2 percent of GNP) Global Poverty Reduction (0.7 percent of GNP) Family Planning and Reproductive Health Services (< 0.1 percent of GNP) De-Nuclearization (savings of > 0.1 percent of GNP) Peace in today’s conflict zones (large savings)

43. Total Budget Outlays Of the US Federal Government 700.0 600.0 500.0 400.0 Billions (FY07) Total Outlays 300.0 200.0 100.0 0.0 Defense Development Diplomacy

44. Towards a Global Ethic

45. The Future is “Under-Determined”: Possibilities of Historical Disjuncture (1914, 1917, 1933, 1945) Scientific and Technological Potential is At All-Time High “Leadership” is the alignment of expectations Democratization, Decentralization, and Governability

46. Is Global Cooperation Feasible? Clash of Civilizations? Resource Wars and Interstate Competition? International Commitments, Enforceability, and Free Riders The diverse roles of international organizations, states, business, civil society, and individuals

47. “So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal.” John F. Kennedy American University June 10, 1963