estonia-2030_en

An ageing population is universal in the world; however, in macro-regional terms the demographicsituation remains diverse. At a time when the populations in the Western nations and Japan feature anegative natural population growth and an increase in the proportion of the elderly, many othernations have indeed seen their birth rates decrease yet continue to have plenty of young and working-agepeople. Pressure to migrate from there to the Western nations is helping the latter replenishtheir ranks of working-age people and alleviate the decrease in their populations; however, this isoccurring at the price of the difficulties in the integration of the immigrants. An ageing population isincreasingly burdening specifically the social systems in Europe and Japan and slowing down growththere.Urbanisation is characteristic of the entire world. Nonetheless, this process has its particular featuresin regional terms. In the developed nations, migration features differentiation over the course of aperson's life cycle: the young moving mostly into large cities and towns, families with friends intosuburbs, and older working-age people and retirees more likely into the countryside. That said, migrationis not always limited to the boundaries of one’s home country. The young often go to study andwork in metropolises abroad. The warm Mediterranean coast of Europe, by contrast, is evolving intoa region consolidating the well-off retirees of various nationalities from all of Europe.Climate change has been monitored by means of measurements for over a century. Identification ofthe increased concentrations of anthropogenic greenhouse gases as its cause has met with strongsupport from the international scientific community and the public at large. The harmful impact ofclimate change is considered to include, amongst other things, the increasing shortage in agriculturalland and freshwater supplies in arid regions, which further exacerbates the foreseeable mountingtensions on the food market, also the increased frequency in storms and floods in coastal areas, andthe rising ocean levels. It is expected that the Arctic coast will soon become navigable year-round,shortening the shipping routes between Asia, Europe and the Americas. Over the next few decades,however, the global economy will be subject to the significantly stronger impact of climate treatiesand national climate policies, which aim to move towards a low-carbon world.At the levels of individuals and citizen movements, the influence of environmental values is growingin the world primarily with the support of the Western nations. This is manifested by the fact that aclean environment, healthy diet and lifestyle – also called a green way of thinking in short – are valuedmore extensively than before. People following it prefer to consume organic food and consumergoods made from natural materials, use methods of natural medicine and green means of transport,and live in buildings that are made of natural materials and/or are energy-efficient, often outside citiesand towns.Preferential development of renewable energy is primarily a trend spreading in the Western nationsdue to the risk of climate warming. Apart from that, several nations are engaged in increasing theimportance of nuclear energy and making conventional technology cleaner (for example, clean coaltechnology). Energy conservation is gaining importance increasingly as well.The concepts of so-called green and silver economies generalise the future economy linked to novel7