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Consumption and the Environment in Europe

7 Annex: Three Alternative Consumption Scenarios

The following three sections describe alternative developments in the social, cultural, economic and technological factors shaping consumption, and the environmental implications. These “storylines” have been developed drawing on ideas in the VISIONS scenarios (Rotmans et al, 2001), the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (Nakicenovic and Swart, 2000) and also on insights from Thompson et al (1990) and Beck and Cowan (1996). The timeframe for the scenarios is very approximate, in the region of 2005 to 2030.

7.1 Individualist Europe ^[1]

The global context in this scenario is a decline in international tensions, as the “war against terrorism” peters out. The main issues facing the international community are those surrounding globalisation, demographic transition and sustainable development. The solution that is established emphasises the free market, individual rights and freedoms, and technological innovation to meet consumer expectations within the Earth's ecological constraints. In the Rio+15 summit, industrialised country politicians finally commit themselves to achieving factor-of-ten improvements in resource efficiency and especially in the carbon intensity of the economy by 2050, taking 1990 as the baseline. The aim is to stabilise CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere at 550ppmv.

This is a Europe that continues to play out the dream of the consumer society. Its values are essentially materialist, individualist, and competitive. Trade is increasingly free both within Europe and between Europe and other major regions. There is a continued migration out of Europe of jobs in heavy industry, and also of routine and repetitive jobs in the information industry. Mass-produced goods are mostly imported from low-wage economies, but there is a rapid development in technology producing custom goods in low volumes. The European economy is increasingly based on specialised, knowledge-rich, customer-focused services. Considerable resources are devoted to retraining workers made redundant from industries in decline. But even so, the market for highly educated workers is expanding rapidly at a time when the European working age population is in decline. Immigration makes up the shortfall. Those who cannot compete for these jobs find work in more menial, low-paid service occupations, often with informal and insecure working conditions.

The spread of Internet access, and the rapid development of new forms of service, organisation, and community based on it, have an impact on society comparable with the growth of car use and the TV in the 1960s. The EU15 states maintain an average economic growth rate of 3.5% per year for a couple of decades. By 2030 the average per capita GDP is €45,000. The acceding central and eastern European states catch up rapidly with the EU15, with an average growth rate of 7% over the same period, and reach average per capita GDP of €30,000 by 2030. This is the boom phase of an economic long wave and a time of rapid technological, economic and social change.

In this scenario, government plays an important role ensuring that markets work efficiently, and that social and environmental concerns are addressed through effective market mechanisms. These include a range of charges, regulations and trading systems in “goods” and “bads”.

7.1.1.1 Early stages
Lifestyles have been heavily influenced by the new ICTs. With growing numbers of single-person households, city centres are thriving, functioning as the face-to-face meeting places of the global village. There is also a dramatic increase in home working, which allows people to live further from their place of employment and provides an economic boost to remote areas. By 2015, over 90% of European households have a computer with Internet access and use it to carry out the majority of their transactions, including shopping, banking. Ultra-fast broadband is the main route for accessing TV and other media. The gaming equipment industry evolves to develop rapidly-improving virtual reality simulation, finding a wide variety of applications. The home recreation centre becomes a major status good. At the same time, with rapidly falling computer chip costs, computerisation is a universal feature of domestic appliances, transport equipment, and even consumable goods.

The rapid growth of new industries combined with the burgeoning service sector is creating jobs at all skill levels, so that Europe is finally returning to near-full employment. There is a decline in social tensions and crime.

Household budgets continue to shift away from food, towards leisure, recreation and cultural activities. ICT also represents a rapid growth area in household spending.

Food consumption patterns are shifting rapidly. Home cooking is in decline as convenience and take-away foods become cheaper, household budgets increase, and lifestyles become more hectic. In city-centres, eating styles are comparable with those in New York in the 1990s, with a proliferation of always-open delicatessens, salad bars and speciality restaurants. In rural areas, the norm is to have a monthly delivery of a wide range of frozen convenience foods. Cooking usually involves heating in a microwave oven. There is a rapid growth in health-promoting functional foods, responding to and fuelling consumer demand. Health-awareness is also contributing to continued growth in the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables, farmed fish and poultry. Consumption of red meat, especially beef but also including pork, is falling.

Personal travel continues to rise, with increasing passenger volumes on urban mass transit systems, rising interurban car use, and very rapid growth in air travel. Most of the growth is in leisure travel. Shopping trips continue to increase in frequency and length, following the 1990s trend, but the growth rate slows. There is no growth in travel to work, due to the increase in home working. The energy efficiency of cars continues to improve, nominally meeting the 140g/km CO₂ target agreed by European manufacturers for 2008 and achieving a further 15% reduction by 2015. However, with an increasing gap between official new car test figures and the actual energy use, and with a growing trend towards four-wheel drive and other exotic vehicles, there is no overall improvement in the energy intensity of personal travel.

Household size continues to fall, especially in urban areas. Larger households tend to live in cheaper rural locations. Children are ferried to school in towns. Populations are growing in urban areas throughout Europe, and there is a growing demand for well-designed new housing, leading to some renewal of the housing stock to replace the apartment blocks of the 1960s and 70s. The construction boom helps to stimulate the economy and is also contributing to energy conservation, with increasing use of low-cost, high thermal performance materials.

As energy use by kitchen and washing appliances continues to fall, ICT begins to make a significant contribution to household electricity consumption. Technological improvements are devoted to performance increases rather than saving energy. In affluent households with numerous computers, network routers and other equipment always on, ICT equipment becomes the main user of electricity. Electricity consumption continues to grow in line with household income.

GDP per Capita, Individualist Europe

Environmental implications. Energy and material use were relatively stable during the 1980s and 1990s. The economic boom, in particular the increase in construction and personal travel, leads to a sudden upturn in both. Efficiency improvements accelerate because of housing renewal, as well as rapid turnover of vehicles and personal appliances. But the economy is growing even faster.

Technological improvements in the supply chain lead to factor-of-ten reductions in emissions of conventional pollutants over the decade. Renewable energy sources also begin to take off, contributing 10% of Europe's energy needs by 2015. Meanwhile, the almost complete shift from coal to highly-efficient combined cycle gas turbines in power generation mean that CO₂ emissions continue the decline of the 1990s, and the European Union meets its modest obligations under the UN FCCC.

7.1.1.2 Further developments
The economic boom continues as ICT reaches and organises more aspects of everyday life. The growing popularity of home schooling, supplemented by teaching via the Internet, enables middle class flight from the suburbs to rural areas. Cities are increasingly ringed by suburban slums housing low-wage workers, while the affluent either choose the thriving cultural and community life of the city centre, or the tranquillity of the rural life. The European economy revolves increasingly around advanced technologies, with important developments in biotechnology, materials and nanotechnology. Anti-ageing drugs come onto the market. An increasing proportion of income is spent on ensuring life-long health, and on a growing variety of insurance services and safety products.

The cracks in the Individualist world are beginning to show. It is becoming apparent that the Factor 10 target will not be achieved. The CO₂ intensity of the economy is improving at about 2% per year, slightly slower than economic growth, so that overall CO₂ emissions are continuing to increase. Oil reserves are dwindling rapidly and prices rise from 2020, reaching $200/barrel by the end of the period. Synthetic fuels from renewable sources finally become competitive without government subsidies, but towards the end of the period supply is unable to keep pace with demand so that there are frequent shortages and fuel prices are extremely volatile. Gas reserves are also in decline, leading to a growing penetration of renewable electricity supplies.

Social divisions are growing between the “connected” and the excluded populations who cannot afford the new technology, and struggle to survive with the reduction in social security provision and the rising commodity prices. Civic unrest is growing as communities excluded from the new technological age begin to organise themselves into effective protest movements.

At the same time, climate change and its impacts are becoming more apparent. Governments and businesses are spending increasing amounts on adaptation, and on reparations after extreme weather events. Some areas of Europe are suffering population flight because of the changes.

Food consumption continues along the trends of the previous decade. In cities, most food is prepared away from home in the form of restaurant meals or take-aways. With the growing rural population, most household receive monthly deliveries to stock up their freezers, but food deliveries also begin to be made by air. Food preparation in affluent homes is largely automated. Consumers have the option of buying prepared meals (computer chips in the reusable, reprogrammable smart packaging provide instructions to the smart cooker), or using increasingly sophisticated and diverse kitchen equipment to “make their own” bread, cakes, roast meat, steamed vegetables etc., using prepared ingredients. The technology provides perfect cooking every time. Advanced food storage technologies bring about the decline of the home freezer (ice cream and ice cubes are produced by specialised appliances on demand, rather than being kept frozen).

Personal travel by road begins to level off, as more affluent consumers abandon their cars for air taxis or personal private flymobiles for intercity and rural travel. Personal flymobiles are fully automated. With intelligent, networked and automated guidance systems which negotiate routes to avoid collisions, congestion is not a problem. Cities begin to introduce rapid transit systems, in which passengers are conveyed in electrically powered personal vehicles. A wide variety of systems are tried, including rail-based, road-based and maglev. Where the systems are introduced, city authorities are able to impose a complete ban on parking so that car drivers are forced to abandon their cars. However, lower income households cannot afford the high costs of local air travel or the rapid transit systems. Cars remain important for local travel outside city centres. There is a rapid shift to electric or fuel cell cars.

Homes are now fully automated. With rapidly rising fossil fuel prices, energy conservation is becoming a high priority. ICT becomes much more efficient, as innovation is devoted to energy saving more than performance improvement. Room temperature and lighting are intelligently controlled in response to the location of the occupants. New housing has extremely high thermal performance and the needs for heating and cooling are roughly equal, managed by electrically powered heat pumps transferring heat to and from the ground. Older housing is increasingly retrofitted with insulation but has a higher energy requirement for heating and cooling. Micro-CHP becomes widespread, with electricity and heat generated by in-house fuel cells.

Environmental implications. Material use cycles have largely been closed, with high-tech systems for the return and reuse of packaging. Household waste systems are fully automated, carrying out composting and separating waste streams for collection and reuse or recycling. The shift to virtual reality shopping has, in any case, more or less eliminated packaging waste as delivery services are also required to collect the reusable packaging from food and other household consumables. The computer chips in the packaging include instructions for return, reuse or recycling.

With the shift away from fossil fuels, air quality is continuing to improve. The major concern is the continuing increase in extreme weather events associated with climate change, and the almost continual drought experienced in southern Europe. Nevertheless, there is optimism that greenhouse gas emission are falling rapidly. New technologies are being developed to scrub CO₂ and other GHGs from the atmosphere.

Towards the end of the scenario period there is a period of recession, characterised by soaring prices for energy and food resulting partly from extreme weather events that disrupt both agriculture and renewable energy supplies. Many European economies are also flagging because of the large number of people who took early retirement in the years 1990-2010 without adequate private pensions, and who now have life expectancies in excess of 100.

The recession weeds out some of the less efficient businesses still relying on old technology. Energy demand in Europe finally begins to fall as prices rise. Final energy use per unit of GDP declines by about 3% per year, but fossil fuel use falls at about 5% per year with a rapid shift to renewables. It is beginning to become imaginable that Europe could reduce CO₂ emissions – but only if this rate of fuel switching is maintained.

7.2 Traditional Europe ^[2]

With an intensification of the “war against terrorism”, this is a “clash of civilisations” scenario (Huntington, 1996) in which major world regions consolidate into blocks based on cultural affinity, and communication and trade between the blocks declines. In response to the growing external security and economic threat, European governments show unprecedented unity in moving towards a strong federal constitution, with a unified tax system and currency.

After 50 years of peace and growing individual freedom in western Europe, the war footing forces a retreat to more traditional values. Governments take control, imposing law and order, restricting the freedom of information, trade and international movements of people. As it becomes harder for individuals to assert their rights, power begins to become concentrated within “old boy networks”. Whereas in the Individualist scenario, what you know is important, in Traditional Europe what really matters is who you know. Within government and business, equal opportunities policies are maintained on paper, but in practice, job promotion and success is based increasingly on having the right contacts and background.

Business also consolidates, with mergers and takeovers leading to a declining number of trans-European companies with strong government connections. With a resurgence of protectionism and the goal of sourcing commodities from within Europe, industries that had been shrinking, such as iron and steel and textiles, begin to grow.

Economic growth in this scenario is slower than during the last couple of decades of the 20^th century, in the region of 1.5% per year on average, but faster in the Accession States. As a result of immigration controls the European population continues to age and begins to decline. Technological innovation is focused on developing products for the mass market, and on achieving European self-reliance in energy and other commodities.

The global environment is a low priority as the UN system collapses, taking international environmental treaties with it.

7.2.1.1 Early stages
Recession in Europe has dragged on, exacerbated by trade wars with other major world regions, a collapse of international air travel and tourism, and a rapid rise in oil and other commodity prices. But by 2010 the Euro zone begins to show signs of benefiting from the common currency, and additional countries are queuing up to join.

The 1990s privatisation trend continues, on the one hand providing one-off windfall gains for governments, and on the other reducing the fiscal burden of maintaining public services. The substantial reduction in taxation across Europe helps to make a move to federalisation more palatable. However, the former public sector companies maintain their natural monopolies in areas such as telecommunications, utilities, construction and road and rail maintenance.

Consumption patterns in this scenario are roughly in line with the 1990s trends, with growth particularly in mass-produced products. There is sufficient competition between the major consumer products companies to achieve ongoing cost reductions, price regulation keeps utility prices down.

Trade unions become more powerful in this scenario, and although wage increases are relatively slow, they succeed in negotiating a continued shortening of the working week. With declining public service provision, there is a growth in volunteer community involvement in the provision of care to the needy.

In this scenario, ICT becomes an important instrument for government and business activities and influence. In homes it is a channel for the delivery of information and entertainment services, and there is a growth in Internet shopping and transactions, but this is less rapid than in Individualist Europe. As material production remains an important part of the European economy, the trend towards home-working is limited.

Food consumption in this scenario sees a continuation of many 1990s trends, with increasing intake of manufactured products, especially take-away and snack foods based on cheap ingredients. Home cooking continues to decline with increasing use of frozen convenience foods. Consumer choices are shaped to a large extent by supermarket buying and marketing policies. The market for organic food dwindles, although there is a growing emphasis on low-input agriculture to keep costs down. Consumption of dairy and meat products, especially pork and chicken, grows. New, distinctly European, fast food concepts are developed. With the emphasis on European production, there is a decline in the consumption of out-of-season and exotic fruit and vegetables. Fresh fruit and vegetable consumption stagnates with the decline in home food preparation. Fish consumption also declines as Atlantic stocks collapse.

Travel patterns follow historical trends with some shifts. In particular, long-haul air travel decreases significantly and there is an increase in holiday-making within Europe, contributing to a growth in short-haul flights and long-distance car use. Considerable effort is devoted to expanding the European high speed rail network with private financing and this begins to provide effective competition to air travel for flights of 500km or less, opening up landing slots for longer flights. Europe is increasingly suburbanised and car-dependent. However, with high fuel prices, the growth in car sizes is halted and there is only limited growth in car travel per capita, at about 1.5% per year. Total car energy use begins to decline.

Housing replacement is slow. Although European population is falling, there is substantial migration from the poorer to the more affluent regions. Planning restrictions are relaxed around some thriving cities, leading to suburban sprawl, while others maintain tight controls and see rocketing property prices. The trend towards single person households is addressed mostly by subdividing existing properties. As prices of gas (imported from outside the EU) begin to rise towards the end of the period, there is growing concern to retrofit insulation to these properties. Household energy demand for heating is fairly steady. Electricity demand grows slowly with the spread of consumer electronic equipment, in particular digital TV (mostly from broadcast and broadband Internet).

Environmental implications. High commodity prices, low economic growth, and the need to source materials from within Europe, result in a slight decline in overall material flows. GHG emissions also decline, continuing the trend of the 1990s. The adoption of cleaner technology is slower than in Individualist Europe, as environmental pressure groups are less influential vis-à-vis big business and government interests. The shift from coal to gas in power generation is halted as a result of growing concerns about energy security, and declining international pressure to reduce GHG emissions. But there is also a resumption of nuclear power plant construction.

The car fleet becomes cleaner overall, as pre-catalytic converter vehicles are scrapped, but there are no significant new initiatives to reduce air emissions further.

The environmental impacts of agriculture (nitrate runoff, pesticides, GHG emissions) also decline gradually as farmers seek to minimise the use of inputs whose cost has been increased because of the high energy prices.

GDP per Capita, Traditional Europe

7.2.1.2 Further developments
With continuing global tensions, the EU expands further with the accession of the remaining EFTA sand central and eastern European states. At the same time there are the quiet beginnings of a civic society backlash against the concentration of power in government and business. Satirical newsletters, distributed via the Internet, reach a growing readership. But any efforts to demonstrate on the streets are rapidly put down by the increasingly powerful federal police.

Technological innovation has all but disappeared, and any improvements in production processes are achieved through second-rate copying of new techniques from rapidly industrialising southeast Asia. Economic growth slows to a near standstill.

Government and business abandon the pretence of liberal values such as equal opportunities and transparency. Cronyism becomes a dominant way of operating. Consumer information regulations are not enforced and companies find new, creative ways of selling substandard products without breaking the letter of the law.

Income disparities within the population grow, as redistributive taxes are cut at both national and federal level. In particular, there is a growing class of long-term unemployed, and of people able to find work only in part time informal jobs.

The ageing of the population is continuing, with fertility rates remaining well below replacement levels and tight controls on immigration. The dominant mode of funding retirement is now through private pension plans, but a number of fraud scandals have damaged public confidence in these. While the official retirement age has not been increased, a growing number of older people are returning to work, doing menial, low-paid jobs. Destitution is increasingly common among the elderly.

Health care is a growing burden on some national governments and there is a new demand for a unified European system. When this emerges, it takes the form of an insurance-based, mass-provision model, with large parts of health care (hospital services etc.) provided by big business although doctors manage to maintain their status as independent professionals.

Companies increasingly operate in multiple sectors – e.g. catering, building, cleaning or transport services for schools, hospitals and prisons. With declining competition, standards deteriorate.

Some food consumption trends of the early stages continue, with increasing volumes of cheap snack, take-away and fast foods. But there is also declining consumption of fresh foods. Home food consumption is completely dominated by pre-packaged meals. Standards decline, as manufacturers find cheaper ways of making products using lower quality ingredients. Meat consumption falls as more water, cereal, and new synthetic products are used to bulk out processed foods.

Transport patterns are divided between those who have secure positions in business and government, and low income households relying on meagre wages and benefits. Rail and air transport services cater mainly for the wealthy, but poor management leads to a series of accidents with large numbers of fatalities. This leads to a resurgence of growth in car use for longer distance travel. Low-income households are dependent on cars or on growing informal, low-cost bus networks. Oil remains the main fuel for road and air transport, but high fuel prices constrain most households' travel. There is a strong trend towards smaller, cheaper cars with relatively low fuel consumption.

The housing stock is deteriorating due to a lack of investment and poor quality of repairs and replacement materials and equipment. With the rising price of gas, some households revert to using coal and wood as a heating fuel. Electricity supplies become less reliable, and there is growing use of home-generated renewable electricity, but declining use of TV and other consumer electronics as the quality of the entertainment available deteriorates.

Environmental implications. There is a significant reduction in European GHG emissions as a result of economic decline. A growing proportion of agricultural land falls into disuse and reverts to forest. At the same time urban air quality deteriorates as old vehicles are kept on the roads and households burn more solid fuels. Packaging waste continues to grow, and is disposed of mainly through incineration, contributing further to urban air pollution.

Towards the end of the period the unemployed and other discontented groups finally take to the streets, overwhelming the police and forcing the establishment to take notice. The EU begins to include NGOs in negotiations with big business and trades unions, leading to policy reforms. The result is a new growth of small enterprises and locally run transport services meeting people's real needs, and providing hope for the future.

7.3 Egalitarian Europe ^[3]

The global context in the early years of this scenario is one of declining confidence in government as trans-national corporations and media increasingly seem to shape policy. The war on terrorism peters out, and Europe returns rapidly to prosperity and economic growth. By 2005, the media spotlight has turned back to issues that were abandoned in September 2001: globalisation and climate change. The latter is becoming increasingly evident, with regular droughts and forest fires in southern Europe, alternating with floods and storms with unprecedented winds. The IPCC Fourth Assessment, approved in 2005, finds that climate change is proceeding very rapidly, and raises its estimates of the warming impact. It also announces that sea level rises are beginning to be observed, at rates close to the upper confidence limit of the Third Assessment. Governments seem unable to act. They have become committed to stakeholder involvement and consultation, and cannot find a way of reconciling the many points of view expressed by business, NGOs and others.

Other concerns return to the media spotlight. Food scares seem to be coming one-a-fortnight. There are major radioactive releases from ageing nuclear power stations. New concerns emerge about fly-by-wire aircraft, and about European air traffic control, after a series of mid-air-collisions between large passenger aircraft. At the same time, sporadic terrorist attacks are continuing throughout the rich world. The insurance industry is in crisis and many risks in Europe are becoming effectively uninsurable.

In this context, civil society begins to get organised. It is clear that government cannot provide adequate regulation in an age of global sourcing and technological complexity. The conventional police and military establishments are unable to provide security. People are looking for something new. Informal networks of local groups, established as part of the anti-globalisation/anti-consumerism movement, begin to form thriving cyber-communities sharing ideas, values, and good practice. The values in this scenario emerge from this increasingly important global phenomenon. They are egalitarian and pragmatic, focused on the search for sustainable solutions that meet the needs of the environment and address the situations that make young people willing to die in suicide bomb attacks.

This is a crisis scenario. European civilisation approaches collapse as sea level rise and extreme weather events combine to destroy agricultural land, cities and other infrastructure. In this emergency situation, with destruction of a magnitude comparable with that of the Second World War, the population at large is ready to entertain a profound shift in values and priorities.

There is some loss of population, and massive migration, as large areas of land become uninhabitable. But later on, as a new Europe begins to find its feet, there is a sense of optimism and a more robust society, with many experiencing a higher quality of life than in the 1990s. Family and community life becomes more important, and fertility levels settle close to replacement levels.

7.3.1.1 Early stages
With a rapid economic recovery, consumption patterns return to the 1990s trend line. The international community finally achieves agreement on commitments to reduce GHG emissions, but governments seem unable to implement the policies thought to be necessary to reach their targets.

Prosperity turns to drawn-out recession as Europe faces year after year of extreme weather events. Agricultural production is halved and with other world regions facing similar problems, food prices rise rapidly. GDP plunges, bottoming out at about 30% below 2000 levels. Life is more difficult in Europe than it has been for 60 years, with economic collapse leading to unemployment rates of up to 40%, compounded with the high food prices and the costs of coping with storm damage. Consumption patterns are substantially changed.

Over this period, ICT has grown in social importance. The Internet has become the main means of one-to-one communication (including voice and video connections) and the main channel for meetings and for reaching audiences. With a proliferation of information and entertainment sources on the Internet, broadcast TV and the media giants have been unable to keep up with local tastes and culture.

Food. Early in the period, major health scares lead to a reduction in meat consumption, especially affecting factory farming of pork and poultry, which had been the fastest growing areas in the 1990s. Pesticides are also in the headlines. There is a rapidly growing but still small market for local, organic produce from small farmers. People are experimenting with new ways of managing the local food economy. Farmers' markets are held regularly in village halls, schools and churches. In areas served badly by supermarkets, community shops are springing up selling locally produced fresh food, staffed by volunteers who are paid in produce. Vegetable box delivery schemes are increasingly popular. Household food budgets begin to increase as people are willing to pay more for quality and security.

Later, as recession takes hold, these local sourcing routes become increasingly important. With falling incomes and rising prices, many households are spending 50% of their budgets on food. The proportion of animal products in their diets has decreased significantly. A growing proportion of unwaged households rely on local currency and exchange systems to buy their food.

Transport. Terrorist attacks and some high profile accidents lead to a sustained reduction in travel by train, metro and especially air. People are becoming more car-dependant but congestion is worsening rapidly. Effective solutions are developed at a local level in a few towns and cities. In some, the creation of complete networks of bus-only routes encourages a growth in small, local public transport providers. In others, congestion charges lead to more people choosing the bus or cycling. But overall, car traffic and car energy use increases. People are choosing larger, more comfortable cars to sit out the traffic jams.

Later, falling household income leads to a rapid reduction in demand for new cars. Car travel also declines as people cannot afford to run the large, high-tech vehicles that are most common, with their high fuel and servicing costs. The new cars that are bought are much smaller and more energy-efficient.

Housing. Households initially continue the 1990s trends: fewer people per household, higher levels of comfort, declining energy use in conventional appliances but growing energy use in consumer electronics. At the same time, there is a growing number of experiments in alternative household structures and home provision by the growing anti-consumerism movement, including co-housing, new forms of housing co-operative and self-build.

As time progresses, the combination of recession (with little new construction) and mass migration means that in many areas there is tremendous housing pressure. Despite falling incomes, house prices rise and people are forced to live with their immediate and in some cases extended families.

Environmental implications. Early in the period, environmental indicators continue their 1990s trends. There is moderate growth in GHG emissions, resulting mostly from a growth in energy use in transport and in the service sector. There is a slowing of progress in addressing local pollution as government becomes powerless to regulate the globalising manufacturing industry. No new vehicle emission standards are established. Pesticide use is on the increase as farmers struggle to deal with growing pest problems caused by warmer winters. The car manufacturers fail to meet their voluntary target for reducing car CO₂ emissions, as consumers continue to choose larger, more energy-consuming vehicles.

As climate change impacts become more evident, this becomes the main environmental concern. But GHG emissions begin to fall because of the recession.

GDP per Capita, Egalitarian Europe

7.3.1.2 Further developments
Climate change is beginning to transform the map of Europe. It is becoming evident that some major areas of agricultural land and coastal settlements will have to be abandoned, although sea-level cities are being defended with new sea walls. The agricultural centre of gravity of the EU is moving east and north, as rising temperatures lead to longer growing seasons in Scandinavia, Poland, Britain and northern Germany. Agricultural land in much of southern Europe has to be abandoned as it becomes necessary to pipe water supplies from regions of excess rainfall in the north. There is a migration of population from the west to the east.

There is growing pressure for households and local communities to be self-sufficient. Electricity grids suffer frequent storm damage and there is a rapid take-off of distributed (local, small-scale) generation, much of it from renewables and using micro-CHP.

With the formal economy in tatters, the social innovations of earlier years begin to take off. In some regions, local exchange systems become the most important channel for trading in services and food. Credit unions, housing co-ops and other community organisations provide a safety net, and a base from which the economy begins to recover, although growth in monetary terms is slow compared with the 1990s. The established community initiatives become the legends that everyone else seeks to imitate.

Food consumption patterns have been significantly altered. Initially, people eat local, in-season, vegetarian food because that is all they can afford. But as the economy recovers, LOAF (local, organic, animal-friendly, fair-trade) principles are widely followed by both organisations and households. With stronger communities and less time spent in formal employment, it is becoming more popular to cook at home, from raw ingredients. The specialised domestic appliances bought at the beginning of the century are wearing out, and most people cannot afford replacements, so most homes have reverted to relatively simple kitchen equipment. Compost is very much in demand by local growers, so households are careful to save any organic waste.

Transport. With the emergence of strong neighbourhood communities and increasingly vibrant local services and production, the demand for transport only increases modestly during the economic recovery. New ways of organising transport are emerging, including various forms of car-sharing, community car provision and leasing. The average car size is rapidly shrinking as the fleet is replaced by ultra-light, ultra-efficient vehicles, powered by electricity or biofuels. There is a rapid growth of bus systems and minibus taxi services, and also greatly improved provision for non-motorised transport.

Housing. There is a growing need to rebuild and redesign homes, partly because of damage by storms and other extreme weather events, partly because climate change means that homes need to be designed to cope with different weather conditions. However, as the economy remains fragile, there is rapid growth in self-build and community housing co-operatives, constructing homes with excellent thermal properties from local materials. With relatively few appliances, and the improving efficiency of new appliances, electricity demand is falling.

Environmental implications . The environment has been badly affected by climate change, but Europeans are now developing a much simpler lifestyle, with low levels of waste, high levels of composting and recycling. Energy consumption is falling, and there is a growing shift to renewables. Air pollution is increasing due to the growing use of biomass energy.

Towards the end of the period, the signs are clear that Europe is getting back on its feet. Although in monetary terms people are less wealthy than in 2000, the wealth is more evenly spread. Mental health is better than it has been since the 1960s and crime levels have decreased substantially. Public surveys show high levels of life satisfaction.

Footnotes

[1] This section draws principally on the VISIONS “Knowledge is King” scenario, and also on the IPCC SRES A1 scenarios. The dominant culture in this scenario is represented in Table 4.1 as Strategic/Individualist mode.

[2] This section draws principally on the VISIONS “Big is Beautiful” scenario, and also on the IPCC SRES A2 scenario. The dominant culture in this scenario is represented in Table 4.1 as the Hierarchy mode, with growing elements of the Heroic Power and Kin Attachment modes.

[3] This section draws principally on the VISIONS “Convulsive Change” scenario, and also on the IPCC SRES B2 scenario. The dominant culture in this scenario is represented in Table 4.1 as Pluralistic mode, with growing elements of the Synthetic mode.

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