Planet under Pressure

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Dr. Elmer Lenzen Publisher Global Goals Yearbook The Covid-19 pandemic is keeping the world in suspense in 2020 and beyond. By declaring a “lockdown,” countries around the world have temporarily frozen their social, economic, and cultural lives in order to slow the spread of the virus. When such unexpected events occur, experts speak of “asymmetric shocks.” However, the pandemic is not the only crisis in recent times: The last decade has been characterized by a whole series of severe shocks. The intervals between them appear to be getting shorter and shorter: the financial crisis in 2008/2009, the refugee crisis in 2015, Brexit (and, as a result, an EU integration crisis), unbelievable losses of biodiversity, increases in extreme weather events due to climate change, to name but a few. And it will not be the last crisis: In the aftermath of the lockdown, there are already signs of an impending global food crisis that is due to destroy supply chains, and a debt crisis – right up to national bankruptcy – due to the economic consequences of the pandemic. Living with the crisis: “The new normal“? If such crisis-like external influences are to a certain extent unavoidable, then the logical question is: What about our ability to adapt to such shocks? The ideas of vulnerability and resilience have recently gained a high level of prominence in the current economic and political debates. Specifically “resilience” has become a standard term in the OECD, the EU, and the G20 conference formats. In addition, in the Anglo-Saxon world, numerous grassroots movements have formed – participating in what they call “community resilience” – and are closely linked to the sufficiency, degrowth, and commons movements. Purely in terms of the number of mentions, the concept of “resilience” is in the process of supplanting that of “sustainability” due to the frequency with which it is being used in (economic) political discourse. However, the term also runs the risk of becoming a filler word to give new emphasis to old demands. The Bertelsmann Foundation rightly points this out in a study from 2017: “However, the virtually inflationary use of the resilience concept has been accompanied by a lack of precision. In particular, there is often no clear understanding that alongside its static interpretation (retention of a system’s existing functions in the case of a crisis), crisis resilience also includes an adaptive dimension (adjustment to new surrounding conditions).” What exactly does resilience mean? The term “resilience” comes from the Latin resalire (to jump back). The English translation “resilience” is commonly translated as “resistant.” Many interpret this resilience to mean that one returns to the starting position after an external impact. This corresponds to the image of a pendulum. This is catchy and visual, but nevertheless wrong, because it does not take into account dynamic changes in the society: People can, for example, learn from past events and prepare for imponderables to come. In a natural system, processing shock is predetermined (natural curve); in a man-made system, we can shape it (learning curve). The Bertelsmann study therefore concludes: “Resilience thus no longer necessarily refers to the ability of a system to return to the old and unchanged state after a short deviation. Rather, adaptive resilience is based on the ability to make a transition to a possibly new state that is no less satisfactory than the old state.” 12 Global Goals Yearbook 2020
RESILIENCE THE DISCOURSE ON VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE Connections to other discourses ► Anthropocene: The debate about the Anthropocene shares similar approaches with the discourses on vulnerability and resilience – especially regarding socio-ecological systems. ► Planetary boundaries: The discourse on planetary boundaries is strongly linked to the debate about the Anthropocene and was mainly established through the Stockholm Resilience Center, which was also involved in the popularization of the resilience discourse in the context of socio-ecological systems. ► Good life: The debate about a good life – for example in the context of “Buen Vivir” in Latin America or Gross National Happiness in Bhutan – is gaining importance on the political level in Germany as well as internationally. ► Security: While the vulnerability concept can be traced back to military research, the discourse on resilience is increasingly taking up room in debates on security policy. This is especially evident in the intense psychological debate on vulnerability and resilience of soldiers in the United States, and it is finding prominence within their training programs. Source: UBA 2017: Nachhaltigkeit 2.0 – Modernisierungsansätze zum Leitbild der nachhaltigen Entwicklung Diskurs „Vulnerabilität und Resilienz“ Back to the future or past? Already in ancient times, the philosopher Heraclitus knew that you cannot go into the same river twice. And so it is with the return to normality after an external shock event. If one keeps this in mind – and at the same time remembers the frequency with which the concept of resilience is used in politics – it is surprising that most definitions are extremely imprecise. A recent working paper of the European Central Bank, for example, says: “Resilience is understood here as the capacity to minimise output losses once an adverse shock hits the economy.” This equating of resilience with the reduction in growth impacts does not help us. The definition is backward-looking, and there is no reflection on how the “new normal” can look and be assessed after a crisis. A one-dimensional growth path is easy to measure, but that is no longer enough to explain a world that knows planetary boundaries, conflicting goals, and development goals. Let’s >> EFFECT OF A MASSIVE IMPACT ON THE SYSTEM Massive disturbance e.g. revolution System Tipping point System The degree of resilience is measured by the strength of the shock absorbed by the system before the original equilibrium is finally destabilized (“tipping point”). Damped vibrations after regime change Global Goals Yearbook 2020 13
Page 1 and 2: GLOBAL GOALS GLOBAL GOALS YEARBOOK
Page 3 and 4: H.E. António Guterres The Covid-19
Page 5 and 6: 26 Interview with EU Commissioner P
Page 7 and 8: JULY High-level Political Forum, in
Page 9 and 10: OCTOBER UN Biodiversity Conference
Page 11: RESILIENCE Resilience in the Time o
Page 15 and 16: RESILIENCE How does resilience work
Page 17 and 18: The Planetary Momentum RESILIENCE A
Page 19 and 20: RESILIENCE Degrees of globalization
Page 21 and 22: RESILIENCE Where digitization will
Page 23 and 24: RESILIENCE Professor Rosa, in your
Page 25 and 26: RESILIENCE since we’re no longer
Page 27 and 28: POLITICAL LESSONS The EU RECOVERY a
Page 29 and 30: POLITICAL LESSONS sustainability is
Page 31 and 32: POLITICAL LESSONS health, economic,
Page 33 and 34: POLITICAL LESSONS 2. situation to l
Page 35 and 36: POLITICAL LESSONS 8. The empowermen
Page 37 and 38: POLITICAL LESSONS Several months ag
Page 39 and 40: POLITICAL LESSONS share the mineral
Page 41 and 42: ered it unfair for Indonesia to sub
Page 43 and 44: ECONOMIC LESSONS The world as we kn
Page 45 and 46: ECONOMIC LESSONS mal, and the whole
Page 47 and 48: ECONOMIC LESSONS with funding going
Page 49 and 50: ECONOMIC LESSONS We are going to do
Page 51 and 52: ECONOMIC LESSONS Prior to the pande
Page 53 and 54: ECONOMIC LESSONS Case in point: In
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Page 57 and 58: ECONOMIC LESSONS Impact Map for Sce
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ECOLOGICAL LESSONS “We cut the tr
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ECOLOGICAL LESSONS Brian Bird, a re
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ECOLOGICAL LESSONS There comes a po
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uilt Columbia Maryland, which was t
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Global Goals Yearbook 2020 71
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ECOLOGICAL LESSONS What determines
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ECOLOGICAL LESSONS its head? The sa
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GOOD PRACTICE 84 Bayer 86 Beaulieu
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Having our customers are at the hea
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hand, the manufacturing process mus
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with an initial capacity that enabl
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tecting the harvest. In another pio
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and usage, an extra component such
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of 2020, 100 percent carbon neutral
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www.business-keeper.com health and
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Building upon our commitment to the
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edge on the main recycling pathways
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ACCELERATION IN DEVELOPMENT OF RENE
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several ways. It can reduce the req
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heat must be cooled, which itself i
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they could cope with immobilization
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At Inditex, we focus on our clients
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system in a controlled manner, virt
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GOOD PRACTICE 118 macondo foundatio
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and procuring renewable energies at
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ainfall collected brine solution co
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Crowdsourcing discovers the “wisd
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from its supply chain - by 30 perce
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as well as questions of good corpor
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4. You are responsible for a) ESG t
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a significant reduction in CO 2 emi
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engaged in this fight, the company
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SUSTAINABLE CONCEPTS FOR HEAT ENGIN
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tion model, farmers have a sustaina
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national and local governments, inc
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than in winter. This also pushes CO
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produce solutions to problems of pe
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tially the same - reduces the abili
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The Asian pogonia The Japanese snip
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policymakers as well as leading org
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Symrise contributes to the followin
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INNOVATION IN CLIMATE PROTECTION 05
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The new Wilopark of all electricity
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REVIEW Only ten years remain to imp
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REVIEW Global Goals Yearbook 2020 1
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REVIEW Another very successful work
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REVIEW Global Goals Yearbook 2020 1
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REVIEW About the Global Goals Forum
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The United Nations Environment Prog
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CDP is a not-for-profit charity tha
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GLOBAL GOALS YEARBOOK
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Planet under Pressure

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