well what a wonderful opening I find it quite uncanny actually when uh president of the European commission Ursula Wonderland decides to read a speech that mentions not only the limits to growth but probably half of what I wanted to give to you this morning I could actually step down but I think it demonstrates the nature of this incredible house and it demonstrates the nature of the possibility of bringing together a multi-party solution to move Beyond growth so I do want to start by giving credit to Ursula Wonderland as you have Philippe for her exemplary leadership
and with the support of this house she has steered Europe through a global pandemic towards a European green and Social Deal and also the response to an ongoing war in Ukraine we could think about the Despair and the pain of the Ukraine today but today I want to bring you some hope we won't be able to end the rolling crises but we can build more resilient societies better able to deal with shocks and stresses and we can build societies that support transformation not reject it is the very fact that we are here today for the
next three days in the European Parliament talking about the root cause of the Pali crisis the obsession with growth this is genuine leadership and I applaud you Philippe and your colleagues for their Vision to host this conference let's make sure though we translate all these speeches into action when we leave these hallways on Wednesday ladies and gentlemen it is not difficult the needed policies to put Europe further on the path towards a more sustainable and inclusive society and economy have their anchors in the eu's own history Traditions initiatives and legislation notably these anchors are found
in the treaty on the European Union the European commission's own strategic dashboards and the European green deal it shows that by keeping the overarching vision for an economic model that underpins the European green and Social Deal and delivers greater Prosperity the European institutions can and should set the tone for a future policy our goal now is to bring the member states and citizens on this journey but before I provide growth I want to say the solo indicated how important Europe's democracy is it is now very obvious that the idea of growth and democracy are inextricably
linked the discussion today comes one year ahead of big elections and major democracies including the United States the UK and of course the European Union in these elections every party from left to right will talk about economic growth they will all have their solutions to drive growth the media will challenge them on whether these Solutions will actually Foster growth but the growth narrative is never changed we are all here to change that we are all here to show that the Emperor or the empress has no clothes with economic growth is clearly failing the majority of
people let's be clear democracies are under threat social tensions are rising citizens simply don't believe the political Elites are on their side we're seeing a slide back from democracy at the very moment we need strong democracies that are able to take historic decisions giant leaps to transform economies away from luxury carbon and biosphere consumption I will make the case that we can have strong democracies or we can continue our dangerous obsession with growth but we can't have both the center cannot hold the most important thing we can do right now is invest in Social cohesion
at the heart of that is human well-being Economic Security and ecological resistance not growth last year indeed was the 50th anniversary of our similar report at the club of Rome the limits to growth and that event an event commemorate that one of the key authors Dennis Meadows describe the moment when he presented to a similar group of people not as many youth I must say an assembly of politicians and business leaders and he said he was extremely nervous this is 1972. he thought he was wasting their time he thought he was going to spend an
hour telling them the things they already knew that exponential growth on a finite Planet would have will have catastrophic consequences for people and planet Dennis said he was simply astounded that this appeared news to his audience yet here we are 50 years on and somehow this continues to be news not a reality the limits to growth warned about overshoot and collapse in the 21st century the scenarios indicated that the human footprint could end up exceeding the carrying capacity of planet Earth but what has happened since today 50 years later it is a historical fact that
political leaders chose to follow the most destructive scenarios of the limits to growth the human footprint has continued to grow and it has now been established scientifically that we have exceeded six of nine planetary boundaries most worrying is climate yet the limits to growth science is still challenged there is an assumption that technology will fix the problem the only technology that will fix this at this time is a time machine to go back 50 years [Applause] [Music] it's not technology we need this obsession with technology we need to change the economic Paradigm and we need
political leadership so last year myself and my colleagues published a new analysis Earth for all a survival guide for Humanity we looked at this transformation head-on and we said in one single human lifetime we must transform we explore just two scenarios which we call too little too late right now business as usual and the giant leap to develop the scenarios we brought together a transformational economics Commission of economists and thought leaders from across the globe and a novel System Dynamics model called Earth for all one of the Novelties of the model is that we included
two indices a well-being index and a social tension index the two little too late scenario is essentially the road the world is on now incremental progress on climate change poverty gender empowerment and food systems change it is a world of regional rivalries it could have been called The Road to Hell in our scenario we will cross the two degree climate limit within a few decades and we know that there is a very high risk of Crossing multiple tipping points including the loss of the Greenland ice sheets and critical parts of Antarctica in this scenario business
as usual we destabilize the planet for all future generations to clean up the mess the wealth is distributed much like today with the richest on Earth taking almost all the gains and unsurprisingly this reads this leads to Rising social tensions we conclude that Rising social tensions will reduce the capacity of society to act rationally and strongly in the face of adversity just like today this is not stability people this is not security that was the first scenario the second scenario is the giant leap we wanted to identify a small set of actions a minimum viable
product to reach as many sustainable development goals in Europe's vision of a social and green region we wanted to take a systems approach to explore if we can achieve an acceptable level of well-being for the global majority on a finite planet we conclude that nothing less than the following five extraordinary turnarounds are needed to have well-being for all while respecting planetary boundaries ending poverty addressing gross inequality achieving full gender Equity transforming the food system and the way we eat transitioning to clean energy and efficient energy we argue that these five extraordinary turnarounds in the set
of economic reforms that will drive them form the basis of a well-being economy it is not a blueprint but more of a guide for systemic transformation in this scenario poverty ends a generation earlier than too little too late we see gender empowerment in one generation not ten we see a switch to healthier plant-based diets there is still meat consumption but at sustainable levels and we have carbon dioxide emissions every decade to reach Net Zero by 2050. the economic model everywhere is circular regenerative and efficient material consumption of unsustainable resources is rained in fossil energy phased
out and we see a significant redistribution of wealth this is achieved through more government expenditure on health and education coming back to what the president said what is most essential progressive taxation more empowered workers through stronger unions and more representation on boards full gender equity in leadership positions but in this scenario we dramatically see social tensions fall and well-being rise in this scenario we introduce a universal basic dividend operating like a universal basic income with dividends coming to all people sharing the wealth of the Global Commons and public goods who's taking the wealth now it
is not properly redistributed this is not utopic this is what is fair and just and what a society in transformation is all about why do we think this is important we know the giant leap will be disruptive we're talking about a complete shake-up this is everything everywhere all at once it will create shocks but if it is to succeed then we must bring the majority of people along the journey it must be fair and it must provide genuine hope for a better future for the majority there are a huge array of ideas that can drive
the giant leap scenario we don't see it as either or we will need to adopt several economic models at once Mission economies are perfectly compatible with donut economics which is compatible with post-growth thinking we will need green growth we need growth and Renewables in regenerative farming the least developed nations of course need to grow but they need to grow differently we need to work in tandem to enhance a different type of growth that Fosters an economy that Services people planet and prosperity at the same time not windfall profits for example on the back of energy
transport or food poverty we can see more countries openly discussing well-being economies we already have five well-being economies in New Zealand Iceland Wales Scotland and Finland and in recent weeks the Irish President Michael Higgins challenged the country's obsession with growth and we also see Canada and Costa Rica and so many other countries that are saying enough is enough a growth economy and extractive economy is not servicing my country my people this planet our home [Applause] [Music] so ladies and gentlemen this is a message to politicians campaigning on an economic growth platform people don't want economic
growth they want Economic Security they want ecological stability they want government investment in their future and economic and financial systems that Foster their well-being if we need growth it is a growth in Social cohesion to empower democratic governments to act that is the priority the opportunity for the EU is huge this is equivalent to a new brand Marshall Plan within a single generation the EU could achieve energy security food security and economic security how do we achieve it we need leadership from the EU to shift the economic system for one that is grounded in power
and profit and patriarchy to one that is anchored in people planet and prosperity let us make sure that this becomes our future all of us and let us make sure that this becomes our reality together thank you [Applause]
