Global Environment Outlook 3 (GEO 3)

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OUTLOOK 2002–32

environmental programmes in many situations. In other cases, connections imply potential conflicts. The large-scale introduction of modern biofuels in certain regions as a substitute for fossil fuels, a feature of the Policy First scenario, could have adverse implications for biodiversity and agriculture in these areas. Similarly, the use of biotechnology and genetic engineering to improve agricultural productivity could, rather than reducing the demand for agricultural land, lead to a dramatic expansion if organisms are genetically modified to be able to thrive in areas currently unsuitable for widespread crop production or grazing. This outcome would have serious implications for biodiversity and land management. There is a need to be aware of both the small and the large-scale effects of policies, particularly those related to the introduction of new technologies. On a small scale, stimulating better technology to deliver the same services with less resource use is clearly a robust policy that makes sense in almost any conceivable scenario. If scaled up, however, two possible drawbacks arise. First, the improved efficiency may induce an increased level of activity (such as additional travelling in improved motor vehicles), which outweighs the gains achieved by better technology (in this instance lower fuel consumption or lower pollution emissions per kilometre travelled). Second, new technologies that increase dependence, either on other countries or on the technology itself, can increase vulnerability of regions to disruptions in, or misuse of, these technologies. LESSON FIVE The establishment of strong institutions for environmental governance is a prerequisite for almost all other policies. A fundamental distinction between the four scenarios lies in the existence and effectiveness of strong institutions for environmental governance. The scenarios represent largely different political attitudes, citizen values and degrees of acceptance of (or action against) inequality. The political will and vision of governments and other authorities determine, above all else, whether environmentally sustainable development comes within reach worldwide. Where strong institutions for

LESSON FOUR Important linkages exist between different environmental issues and between environmental and broader social issues. It follows that: policy can be made more effective by looking for synergies or ‘co-benefits’ care must be taken to avoid conflicts between policies. The scenarios presented here demonstrate the importance of interlinkages between the environmental, social, economic and political spheres, both within and across regions. The complex interplay between human and natural systems calls for approaches that treat social, economic and environmental concerns in an integrated fashion. Positive synergies between policies can be maximized. For example, well-designed policies can simultaneously address issues such as climate change, transport, and urban and regional air pollution. Thus, ambitious climate policies could serve as a cornerstone of modern, integrated

Reflections on the use of scenarios

For this Global Environment Outlook a scenario approach has been chosen that deliberately emphasizes the possibility of many different futures rather than the probability of any single one. None of the four scenarios that has been presented should be viewed as more or less likely than the others, or as a reference scenario from which the others represent variants. Recent experience and reflections upon issues such as insufficient information (ignorance), the complexity of human and natural systems (surprise), and the ability of humans to choose (volition), suggests that for longer range policy thinking it is not only disingenuous to presume we can know the most likely future, but that it is also detrimental to good policy making because it unnecessarily narrows our vision (Raskin and Kemp-Benedict 2002). The process also revealed some of the challenges in such a scenario exercise. The choice to begin with global archetypes aided in the effort to create sets of nested global and regional scenarios that were consistent with each other. At the same time, this choice arguably limited the range of scenarios that might have arisen had the regional scenario teams been able to operate more independently. The efforts to combine narrative scenarios with quantitative information coming out of models and other analytical tools also drew attention to the need to use consistent assumptions in the two approaches. The quantitative underpinning certainly helped to stimulate the development of the narrative scenarios and provided both consistency checks and powerful means of depicting the differences between the four scenarios in the different regions. It remains apparent, though, that the existing quantitative tools are limited in their ability to capture the richness of narrative scenarios, particularly where these involve significant departures from the current situation.