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ness models adapt to the change (e. g. utilities with-draw from coal and launch renewable energies; Figure 3.1-2); (3) the institutional conditions alter, promot-ing the change; (4) technological development makes it easier to implement the transformation. The general impact and the level of acceptance in the population increases in the course of this process.
Where does the Great Transformation stand today?
When the WBGU report was published in 2011, the insight that decarbonization – i. e. a profound restruc-turing particularly of the energy systems – was neces-sary was only widespread among niche actors. In the meantime, the discourse has reached the agendas of the economic and political elites. It is being noticed world-wide and is broadly established in international diplo-macy and public opinion. With regard to the pattern shown on the left of Figure 3.1-1, which describes the expansion of the actors involved in the transformation, the WBGU believes the development has come a long way; the topic has reached the ‘opinion leaders’ and is in the process of being recognized in the ‘mainstream’.
The following examples are representative of this development:
1. Political actors: In June 2015, the G7 heads of state and government committed themselves to the decarbonization of the world economy in the course of the 21st century (G7, 2015). Other impor-tant countries, e. g. Brazil, also support this
objec-tive (Zeit Online, 2015). The fight against climate change has been laid down as a sustainable devel-opment goal in its own right (SDG no. 13: “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”; UNGA, 2015a). Finally, the Paris Agree-ment of December 2015 contains the international community’s target of reducing net greenhouse-gas emissions to zero in the second half of the cen-tury. Furthermore, one of the three main objec-tives laid down in the agreement is to make finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low green-house-gas emissions and climate-resilient develop-ment (UNFCCC, 2015a).
2. Societal actors: The encyclical Laudato Si’ presented by Pope Francis in June 2015 calls upon world soci-ety to effect a transformation from energy systems based on fossil fuels to renewable energy systems (Pope Francis, 2015). A declaration by major Islamic dignitaries points in the same direction (Interna-tional Islamic Climate Change Symposium, 2015).
Representatives of other world religions have also issued statements on this subject (UNFCCC, 2015c;
GBCCC, 2015; Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies et al., 2015; Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 2015).
3. Economic actors: A change in investment behaviour in the energy sector can be observed worldwide.
The business models are changing; the costs of fossil and renewable energy are moving closer together.
In 2014, renewable energies already accounted for
Low-carbon society
Overcompensation of decarbonisation progress (rebound)
Decarobisation level
years10
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Routinisation Mainstream Opinion leader Agenda setter/
objection Niche player Proactive state
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Climate crisis
Figure 3.1-1
The transformation’s temporal dynamics and action levels. The goal of the transformation is a low-carbon society. Central to the transformation is the decarbonisation of energy systems. Left: The proactive state and the change agents are the key players.
As far as the change agents are concerned, they must move away from a marginalised existence and increase their impact through widespread inclusion in social routines. Right: Decisive action for a change of course towards transformation must be taken within the next decade if the conversion is to succeed within the next 30 years. The sustainable path (green) manages the transition from high-carbon to low-carbon society in time. Overcompensation for decarbonisation advances (for example through rebound effects) could lead to rendering climate protection measures ineffective, so that the transformation fails (yellow). Moderate endeavours only carry the risk of path dependencies that will lead to a global climate crisis (red).
Source: WBGU, modified acc. to Grin et al., 2010
129 more than 45 % of the newly installed global
elec-tricity-generating capacity (Figure 3.1-2; OECD and IEA, 2015a).
4. International institutions: A study published by the International Monetary Fund (Cody et al., 2015) makes it clear that current investments in fossil energy generation are not efficient. The authors expect global energy subsidies to rise to US$ 5,300 billion in 2015 (the equivalent of 6.5 % of global GDP), including the potential value-added taxes that are not stated in the energy price, and the environmental costs – that are not covered – which are essentially caused by the use of fossil fuels. The study comes to the conclusion that a reform of these subsidies could cut the annual number of deaths from air pollution by half and increase global eco-nomic welfare by US$ 1,800 billion. By comparison, average annual investment in the global energy sys-tem totals US$ 1,400 billion (GEA, 2012).
5. Financial actors: The divestment movement is gain-ing momentum and major players are joingain-ing it in the meantime (WBGU, 2014a). The website gofossil-free.org, for example, names more than 500 institu-tions (including foundainstitu-tions, religious groups, gov-ernment organizations and universities) that have committed themselves to withdrawing their invest-ments from companies operating in the fossil-fuel industry (Gofossilfree.org, 2016). Prominent exam-ples include the Norwegian State Fund, the World Council of Churches, the University of Glasgow, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the British Medical Association.
In addition, on the UNFCCC’s NAZCA website more
than 10,000 non-state actors – cities, regions, compa-nies, investors and civil-society organizations – have published their action commitments to address climate change (UNFCCC, 2016). So there are many indica-tions that, in the last few years, public opinion on the climate problem has already shifted clearly in the direc-tion of decarbonizadirec-tion. Interpretadirec-tions and narratives on the subject of a sustainable future have arrived in the mainstream of society (Figure 3.1-1) and in the general population. A new fundamental understanding is becoming established in public discourse on which technologies and lifestyles are regarded as having a promising future. These are important signs indicating the gradual establishment of the new social contract.
Whether the guiding concept of decarbonization, which has been formulated on many levels for the future development of the energy systems, has already triggered a global dynamic in the direction of a physi-cal transformation, cannot be unequivophysi-cally decided on the basis of the current data. On the one hand, recent developments suggest that a decoupling of energy use from emissions might be possible: in 2014 the global economy grew by 3 % without any increase being recorded in energy-related CO2 emissions (OECD and IEA, 2015a). A study by the Global Coal Plant Tracker comes to the conclusion that the extremely dynamic worldwide expansion of coal-fired power plants has weakened considerably since 2010, and that currently only one third of the planned projects are being realized (Shearer et al., 2015). Coal production by the world’s biggest producer, China, as well as production world-wide, was lower in 2014 than in 2013 (IEA, 2015).
On the other hand, there are people who regard
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* Includes geothermal, marine, bioenergy and concentrating solar power.
Figure 3.1-2
Newly installed electricity-generation capacity based on renewable energies by energy source; their share of total newly installed electricity-generating capacity.
Source: OECD and IEA, 2015a
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global decarbonization as unlikely. For example, Steckel et al. (2015) argue that we are currently experiencing a renaissance of coal stimulated by poor countries with strong economic growth, and that this is leading to new path dependencies. In the western industrialized coun-tries, most of which have harmonized their electricity markets, the market will largely determine the use of coal. The use of the various technologies usually fol-lows the sequence of short-term marginal costs. A var-ied picture has recently been emerging here, distributed across geographic regions. In the USA, natural gas was often cheaper to use as a result of the shale gas boom, so that there was a decrease in the use of coal (IEA, 2013). In other parts of the world, the price of natural gas is two to three times higher than in the USA as a result of transport restrictions; in addition, the collapse of the demand for coal in the USA led to further falls in world market prices. These factors and low CO2 prices in emissions trading led to an increase in the use of coal in the EU’s electricity markets, while natural gas was often squeezed out of the market due to the increasing input of renewable energies (Delarue et al., 2008). Follow-ing three decades of continuous decarbonization of the energy systems, the emission intensity of global energy generation rebounded in the decade from 2001 to 2010 (IPCC, 2014c). Developments will therefore depend on whether this trend towards the ‘recarbonization’ of the energy systems is sustainably reversed.
A look at the UN negotiations is encouraging. An initial analysis of the national climate actions (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions – INDCs) submit-ted by the states to the UNFCCC up to mid-October 2015 already showed that about half of the states are explicitly planning measures to mitigate climate change in the energy sector. An implementation of these tar-gets by 2030 would lead to a significant decoupling of economic activity from greenhouse-gas emissions:
the projected energy-related emissions per unit of eco-nomic performance would fall by 40 % compared to today’s figures (OECD and IEA, 2015b). However, fur-ther-reaching measures will be needed to move towards a development pathway that allows anthropogenic global warming to be limited to well below 2 °C or to as low a figure as 1.5 °C .
The WBGU believes that overall many factors indi-cate that global development trends are approaching a tipping point for the Great Transformation. The Paris Agreement set an appropriate benchmark for the trans-formation towards climate compatibility; now it is time for its implementation.
The transformation towards a sustainable urban society
With this report, the WBGU aims to examine urban-ization from the perspective of the Great Transfor-mation towards sustainability and reveal the areas in which fundamental changes are required for the urban transformation towards sustainability. At the same time the WBGU is broadening the perspective: the focus is not only on the transformation towards climate com-patibility, but also on the comprehensive transfor-mation towards a sustainable society (Section 3.2).
Furthermore, not only the proactive state is at the cen-tre of interest in this report; above all the cities and their inhabitants are included in the analysis as co-de-signers of urban transformation.
This report focuses first on the cities as both driv-ers and victims of global change. The Great Transfor-mation towards sustainability is bound to fail without a substantial contribution from cities: it requires funda-mental changes to urban land-use, energy and trans-port systems, and to the management of materials and material flows, as well as fundamental changes in urban governance (Chapter 4).
Second, the people who live in the city, their quality of life, their ability to act and their long-term future prospects are at the centre of the report. Many cities will undergo a profound change in this century simply as a result of the rapid growth in their populations. The increasing inequality of living conditions and develop-ment opportunities in cities is an example of further challenges that make a fundamental change here una-voidable.
Third, when considering the role of cities in the transformation process, the plurality of transforma-tion pathways gains particular importance. In the OECD, the living conditions in many cities have con-verged in terms of the dimension of inclusion (Section 3.4). Nevertheless, there is very considerable diversity between the cities, e. g. in the urban form, the local governance and the design of the transformation path-ways. The demands made on the cities by the trans-formation, as drafted from the normative viewpoint in numerous manifestos and resolutions, tend to be uni-versal in character, yet the prerequisites and strategies for a successful implementation in the cities vary con-siderably.
The Great Transformation towards sustainability will involve fundamental changes and take many decades.
The above-mentioned characteristics of major change processes also apply in the cities. Such a targeted and knowledge-based urban transformation over a period of several decades first requires a change of perspec-tive. Looking from today’s viewpoint into the future is not decisive here because this angle tends to be
ori-131 ented mainly towards the needs and constraints of
the present, and usually makes well-trodden paths appear inevitable. Looking back to today from a con-crete, though imaginary, desirable future has a differ-ent dimension: How can ways be found to make this future possible? This change of perspective by switch-ing to the future perfect tense – “What will we have had to have done” – makes it easier to see the need for radical change in the cities. Incremental improvements to well-trodden paths will not be enough; rather, fun-damental upheavals in the systems will be required in some areas of policy (Chapter 4).
Not only the concept of the transformation can be transferred to the city, but also the idea of a new social contract. The virtual social contract for the Great Trans-formation outlined by the WBGU in 2011 can be fleshed out for cities. Such a ‘social contract for the urban trans-formation towards sustainability’ should be reflected worldwide and at different levels of governance in the form of written charters (Section 9.2). Accordingly, urban societies should agree in a participatory way on the objectives of the transformation process and thus on their long-term future, and formulate them each in their own city charter for urban transformation. They should simultaneously pursue both their local concerns and universal global objectives – to which all people and cities must contribute – and resolve the conflicts of objectives that crop up. The issue here is to sustain the natural life-support systems, but also to enable the people to live a good life and to empower them to help shape their city; both must take into account the great diversity of the cities, the wealth of their cultural traditions and the variety of their development path-ways (Section 3.2). The implementation of the char-ters will have the character of a search and learning process and cannot be derived from universal master plans. It is therefore a common task for all actors. Sim-ilar charters can also be useful at the regional, national and international level in order to place the relationship between the cities and the nation states on a new foot-ing ( Section 9.2).
Cities are both places of continuous negotiation pro-cesses and centres of innovation and change. This is where niche innovations evolve that nourish and pro-mote transformation processes ‘from below’ and have to be brought into line with planning processes ‘from above’. An urban society therefore requires space for diversity and creative autonomy in order to generate the necessary freedom for innovation (Section 3.5.3.3).
Like the transformation fields in the area of cli-mate-change mitigation, which the WBGU described in its 2011 report, transformative action fields can be identified for the transformation towards sustainability in cities (Chapter 4). These are key levers for
shap-ing the Great Transformation towards sustainability in the cities which, due to their urgency, their scale, their potential for preventing path dependencies and their substantial co-benefits, are particularly suitable for triggering system turnarounds towards sustain-ability (Sections 4.1, 9.3). In this context, the WBGU asks about the concrete options as regards the design of the transformation, about blockades and path depend-encies that can stand in the way of the transformation, about ways of overcoming them and how best to accel-erate and massively upscale measures to achieve these goals. The roles of different actors and pioneers are also examined (Chapters 5, 6). Since this is a societal search and learning process, research has an important role to play (Chapter 10).
The universal challenges of the transformation tend to be similar for many cities, but local circumstances and problem constellations differ considerably. Ultimately, therefore, every city must develop its own transforma-tion pathway; there cannot be a universal answer. How-ever, urban actors can learn from each other. The great diversity between the cities is also an opportunity to see how different solution approaches are developed and tried out, so that a global learning process is stim-ulated in this way.
One problem, however, is the question of speed.
Due to the strength of urbanization dynamics, in many cities the development of infrastructure and urban services is considerably lagging behind the increase in population. There is a lot of pressure to create appro-priate structures quickly and on a large scale. For deci-sion-makers this can lead to conflicts with long-term sustainability requirements. Therefore, there is a risk of imprudent infrastructure expansion, creating path dependencies that run counter to the desired transfor-mation direction. There is thus not much time for trying out solutions and innovations if the transformation is also to succeed in fast-growing cities. In addition, this time pressure makes it difficult to handle the existing conflicts of objectives.
This clearly reveals the huge dilemma of the cur-rent rapid urban development. As a societal search and learning process, the transformation requires an adapt-able development that can react to new knowledge, while the high input of resources in the case of pro-found changes in land use and in the construction of buildings and infrastructures, as well as their longev-ity, can lead to path dependencies, the consequences of which are difficult to predict. It is therefore essen-tial that urban development has a transitory element:
adaptability should be incorporated as a principle of urban development (Section 9.2.4.2). It remains to be seen to what extent this dilemma can be resolved.
132 3.2
An extended normative concept for the transfor-mation towards sustainability
Against the background of the Great Transformation towards sustainability and the outlined transformation concept (Section 3.1), the WBGU uses the theme of the city and urban areas in this report as an opportunity to examine the normative basis of the transformation and to define it in greater detail. The following section outlines a ‘normative compass’ which is intended to serve as an orientation framework for the Great Trans-formation in general and the transTrans-formation in the city in particular. On the one hand, this compass is based on an understanding of prosperity that goes beyond material/economic factors; the WBGU already laid this down in its report ‘A Social Contract for Sustainability’
(WBGU, 2011: 74 ff.). On the other hand, the concept is founded on an understanding of societal and urban development that places the needs, the quality of life and the actions of people at the centre of all consider-ations, beyond sectoral and purely functional planning and management approaches. This requires the partic-ipation of all actors in the urban society. Unlike many planning and management approaches, the WBGU does not regard this participatory and transdisciplinary extension as a delay, but places its trust in efficiency and time gains, when such processes are well organ-ized and coordinated, and are transferred to the level of governance with a high degree of commitment ( Section
(WBGU, 2011: 74 ff.). On the other hand, the concept is founded on an understanding of societal and urban development that places the needs, the quality of life and the actions of people at the centre of all consider-ations, beyond sectoral and purely functional planning and management approaches. This requires the partic-ipation of all actors in the urban society. Unlike many planning and management approaches, the WBGU does not regard this participatory and transdisciplinary extension as a delay, but places its trust in efficiency and time gains, when such processes are well organ-ized and coordinated, and are transferred to the level of governance with a high degree of commitment ( Section