Innovations for Sustainability: Pathways to an efficient and post-pandemic future

3rd Report prepared by The World in 2050 initiativ

Ten new insights in climate science 2020 – a horizon scan

Non-technical summary We summarize some of the past year's most important findings within climate change-related research. New research has improved our understanding of Earth's sensitivity to carbon dioxide, finds that permafrost thaw could release more carbon emissions than expected and that the uptake of carbon in tropical ecosystems is weakening. Adverse impacts on human society include increasing water shortages and impacts on mental health. Options for solutions emerge from rethinking economic models, rights-based litigation, strengthened governance systems and a new social contract. The disruption caused by COVID-19 could be seized as an opportunity for positive change, directing economic stimulus towards sustainable investments. Technical summary A synthesis is made of ten fields within climate science where there have been significant advances since mid-2019, through an expert elicitation process with broad disciplinary scope. Findings include: (1) a better understanding of equilibrium climate sensitivity; (2) abrupt thaw as an accelerator of carbon release from permafrost; (3) changes to global and regional land carbon sinks; (4) impacts of climate change on water crises, including equity perspectives; (5) adverse effects on mental health from climate change; (6) immediate effects on climate of the COVID-19 pandemic and requirements for recovery packages to deliver on the Paris Agreement; (7) suggested long-term changes to governance and a social contract to address climate change, learning from the current pandemic, (8) updated positive cost–benefit ratio and new perspectives on the potential for green growth in the short- and long-term perspective; (9) urban electrification as a strategy to move towards low-carbon energy systems and (10) rights-based litigation as an increasingly important method to address climate change, with recent clarifications on the legal standing and representation of future generations. Social media summary Stronger permafrost thaw, COVID-19 effects and growing mental health impacts among highlights of latest climate science

Beyond high carbon society

In the past two decades, despite seemingly violating its policy of sustainable development, the government of Taiwan has continued to develop its petrochemical industry. As a result of which public resistance has emerged. This study examines the social robustness and sub-politics capacity of the movement against Kuo Kuang Petrochemical Corp. from 2010 to 2011. Among the various civil groups engaged in the movement, the anti-expert coalition was formed by local environmental, literary and medical groups as well as universities and university professors. These groups mobilized independently, while supporting one another; leading to a multi-risk movement coalition. One significant difference between this anti-expert coalition and past environmental movements was that it not only constructed systematic risk knowledge and resisted official discourse from a professional perspective, but also developed perceptual literary thought, triggering a response from the general public. Therefore, no matter whether it be through systematic, rational participation in the environmental assessment process, proposing socio-economic assessment and health risk paths or their more perceptual initiation of green thought processes (generation justice, land subsidence, good and agriculture safety and the sustainability of villages) and methods of promoting civil trust, the sub-political pluralism has been able to break through authoritative expert politics, and seek for a dynamic reflexive governance of social sustainable development