Australia in 2050

Living Scenarios for Australia in 2050: Methods and Pathways for a negotiable Future

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Climate change, population growth, demands on resources, and the concerns regarding the current world order underline the urgent challenges we face in coming decades. The debates that we must have, at community, national and international levels, are uncomfortable – yet delay in the debates, and the ensuing hard political and economic decisions, compounds our task. 

This multi-author book sets out some of the environmental and social issues that underlie our emerging challenges, and explores the methods and approaches we will need to rehearse and take effective action in these areas. We seek to contribute to the evolution of realistic and compelling visions for a more environmentally sustainable and socially equitable Australia in 2050.  We do so through four themes, drawing on illustrative material from Australia.

First, we explore the interacting natural and human processes and elements that constitute Australia. Bringing together environmental, economic, cultural and social dimensions, we illustrate how the land, waters, biota and people of Australia form a single evolving dynamic system.

Second, we explore a broad set of scenarios for Australia to 2050 and beyond, within which rational discussion of Australian futures can take place. Indicative scenarios are used to represent key choices contained in this set.

Third, we explore the idea that within this set of possible futures, only some lie within a ‘safe’ social and biophysical operating space. This is the space within which human wellbeing and essential environmental services can be established and sustained simultaneously.  We explore the boundaries of the safe operating space by identifying biophysical and social thresholds which, if crossed, risk irreversible reductions in wellbeing and sustainability.

Fourth, in this book we explore the development of ‘living scenarios’. Rather than being preordained, specified futures, living scenarios are maps of the future that are able to be reworked, and so to evolve. Living scenarios allow for flexibility and ambiguity; they are tools that, of necessity, refashioned in response to changed circumstances. They incorporate diverse opinions, values and aspirations, to converge on an acceptably coherent vision of the future and a path towards it.  Hence the title of the book.

This book is the product of a three-year project titled Australia 2050: Towards Environmentally Sustainable and Socially Equitable Ways of Living, by the Australian Academy of Science (the Academy). The content of the book was developed through commissioned papers prepared January- June 2011, and especially through an intensive workshop (modelled on the Dahlem Workshop methodology) involving 34 participants at Bowral, NSW, 24-28 July 2011.