Megatrends, Emerging Issues and Outlooks
Scenario 2: Depopulation as islanders move to safer ground. Several of the more exposed Pacific island countries are buying land elsewhere to move their populations (Blue and Green Tomorrow 2014). Other islands are experiencing an exodus of people to Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. Under this scenario, population migration will accelerate, leaving some islands with insufficient population to sustain their economies effectively.
Scenario 3: Socio-technology driven adaptation to climate change and extreme events. Under this scenario, the population will remain in place and continue to grow. Climate will continue changing, although more slowly than for Scenario 1, but the Pacific communities will be assisted in adapting to these changes, with appropriate technologies such as salt-resistant food crops, stilt housing and climate- proof infrastructure. The Asia and the Pacific Adaptation Network’s website (APAN 2015) lists potential adaptation technologies.
Scenario 4: SAMOA Pathway (UNDESA 2015), incorporating the blue-green economy (a sustainable economy based on careful stewardship of marine and coastal resources), technology leapfrogging, priority for island community cohesion and resilience, and reconnecting with nature. Combining the joint concerns of disaster risk reduction and climate change, the Pacific region has developed a Resilient Development Strategy (SPC Geoscience 2015) with three strategic goals: strengthened integrated risk management to enhance climate and disaster resilience; low-carbon development; and strengthened disaster preparedness, response and recovery. This pathway would contribute to achieving SDG 13 on climate change. Target 13.1 on resilience and adaptation is particularly relevant to this region.
4.4.3 Southeast and Northeast Asia sub-region
Scenario 1: Unplanned urbanization and industrialization. Under the Asian century scenario (ADB 2011), countries in Southeast and Northeast Asia will continue functioning as the world’s factory. If Asia “continues to follow its recent trajectory, by 2050 its per capita income could rise sixfold in
purchasing power parity (PPP) terms to … make some 3 billion additional Asians affluent” (Kohli et al. 2011). According to ADB research, “Asia’s cities lured more than a billion new residents between 1980 and 2010 and will draw a billion more by 2040”, with more than half of the world’s megacities located in the region (AFP 2012). The environmental consequences of this untrammelled growth, however, are already obvious and will become even worse, especially in Asia’s megacities.
Scenario 2: Industrial ecology and partial regional
cooperation. Planned industrial development and regional cooperation, such as a coordinated regional trade in waste products, can make the most of factor endowments (land, labour, capital, and entrepreneurship) in the Asian region (Kojima and Michida 2013). This option is also described as industrial symbiosis (SWITCH-Asia 2015) and is a feature of a circular economy (Cheam 2015).
Scenario 3: Compact, energy-efficient, and safe urban and industrial zones. The ADB (ADB 2011) states that “by 2050, Asia will be transformed, as its urban population will nearly double from 1.6 billion to 3 billion. Asia’s cities, which already account for more than 80 per cent of economic output, will be the centres of higher education, innovation, and technological development. The quality and efficiency of urban areas would determine Asia’s long- term competitiveness and its social and political stability. Asia must take advantage of being early on its urbanization growth curve to promote compact, energy-efficient, and safe cities”. However, the quality of Asia’s cities is far from assured, so additional measures are needed.
Scenario 4: Inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable urbanization and sub-regional physical and economic connectivity. The SDGs and their targets under this option include SDG 11 on cities, especially Target 11.6 on reducing their environmental impacts, and SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production, especially Target 12.4 focusing on chemicals and wastes, and Target 12.5, which calls for reduced waste generation and advocates prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse (Lindfield and Steinberg 2012).
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