Negotiating our future: living scenarios for Australia to 2050, vol 1 (original) (raw)

Living scenarios for Australia in 2050: negotiating the future

In thinking about a future that is both environmentally sustainable and socially equitable, two challenges are paramount. The first is to assess a multitude of possible pathways over coming decades, and especially their implications for environmental sustainability and social equity. The second is to find ways to negotiate a pathway, where negotiation implies both steering a path through uncertainties and obstacles, and also agreeing on a shared course in the face of differences in values and perceptions that are a hallmark of an open and pluralistic society.

Scenarios for Australia in 2050: A Synthesis and Proposed Survey

We reviewed a broad range of scenarios of the future developed for Australia and globally and developed a synthesis for Australia. Our four synthesis scenarios were structured around two axes: (1) individual vs. community orientation and (2) whether biophysical limits are binding on continued GDP growth or could be overcome with technology. While global scenarios have explored transformational or collapse futures, very few scenarios at the national scale for Australia have done so. Australian scenarios have also not articulated positive futures that are very different from the status quo. We have addressed this gap. We describe each scenario in tabular and summary form. We also developed a public opinion survey to be used to involve Australians in ranking the scenarios and thinking about the future they want. This extension of scenario planning is novel and we hope to employ it to improve thinking, discussion, and policy about Australia’s future.

Towards scenarios for a sustainable and equitable future for Australia

2012

A scenario is an internally consistent narrative about the future, developed using a structured approach with clear and consistent logic to consider systematically how uncertainties and surprises in the future might lead to alternative plausible outcomes. Scenarios can share meaning at deeper levels than logic-based communication through their basis in narrative. Scenario development draws on a range of information, quantitative modelling, expert judgement and creative thinking. These ingredients are combined using procedures that ensure that three key requirements are satisfied: legitimacy (that the information base is reliable and the models used are sound), saliency (that the questions or future uncertainties probed by the scenarios are pertinent) and credibility within specified boundaries (that the scenario is considered plausible by participants in the scenario-building process and by observers). A crucial starting point in scenario development is the specification of a focal question. To exemplify these concepts, we consider scenarios arising from three different focal questions, respectively concerning approaches to climate change, governance and complexification. Finally, we consider processes that could potentially engage Australian society in using scenarios to navigate the future, thereby aiding a national strategic conversation about the issues driving change in Australia over the next 40 years and their relevance for human wellbeing.

A public opinion survey of four future scenarios for Australia in 2050

Futures, 2018

Scenario planning and the use of alternative futures have been used successfully to assist organisations, communities and countries to move towards desired outcomes (Dator, 2009). In this study we used a unique combination of scenario planning and a national public opinion survey to explore preferred futures for Australia in 2050. The approach used four future scenarios for Australia in 2050 as the basis for an online national public opinion survey entitled Australia: Our Future, Your Voice. Scenario development was based on a review of a broad range of scenarios for Australia and globally. We then developed four synthesis scenarios based on two axes of individual versus community orientation, and national focus on GDP growth versus a focus on wellbeing more broadly defined. The scenarios were labelled: (1) Free Enterprise (FE); (2) Strong Individualism (SI); (3) Coordinated Action (CA); and (4) Community Well-being (CW). We created a website that described each of these scenarios and invited people to complete a survey after they had reviewed the scenarios. The survey engaged 2575 adults in two groups: (1) a targeted statistically representative national sample (n = 2083) and (2) a self-selected sample (n = 492). Results from both groups and across all demographic categories revealed that a majority of participants preferred the Community Well-being (CW) scenario. 73% (Representative) and 61% (Self Select) ranked this scenario as 1 st or 2 nd. We also asked which scenario Australia was headed toward. 32% of the Representative sample and 50% of the Self-Selected sample participants ranked the Free Enterprise (FE) scenario as the most likely future. CW was ranked least likely to be 'where Australia is heading?' The dissonance between the future Australians want and where they thought the country is headed has clear policy implications, which we discuss. This extension of scenario planning to include public opinion surveys is novel and this approach can be used to improve thinking, discussion, planning and policy about the future of Australia, as well as potentially other countries and regions.

Australia 2050: Social perspectives

Future trajectories for Australia will be influenced not only by biophysical factors but also by changes to social structures and the abilities of communities to respond and adapt to new environments. The confluence of biophysical and social factors is especially worrying in peri-urban and regional areas where exposure to climate change impacts and existing social stresses are high. However, while there may be clearly desirable zones for achieving social equity and environmental sustainability, it is harder to say where thresholds for social disarray might occur due to the complexity of social factors, system dynamics and individual perspectives.

Applying scenarios to complex issues: Australia 2050

2012

The scoping question for Australia 2050-What is our realistic vision for an ecologically, economically and socially sustainable Australia in 2050 and beyond?sets out a complex objective. This chapter identifies three types of scenario suitable for managing complex risks: exploratory or problem-based, normative or actorbased, and reflexive scenarios that combine various scenario types and are updated through action-based research. Generic risk assessment is defined as the effect of uncertainty on objectives where risks are events that have positive or negative outcomes. Complex risks are distinguished from tame risks: the former are 'wicked' problems that manifest complex system behaviour whereas the latter are linear, bounded problems. Three phases within the process of assessing complex risks are identified: the scoping, analytic and management phases. Three epistemically defined types of risk apply to these phases: idealised, calculated and perceived risk. Each phase within the assessment process requires a different application of scenarios. Risk scoping explores the problem and decision space, defining idealised risks and deciding on scenario types to be applied. The analytic stage uses deductive and inductive methods to calculate risks, applying mainly exploratory scenarios. In the management phase both calculated and perceived risks need to be managed, largely through normative scenarios. Reflexive scenarios use information from short-term actions to inform long-term strategy, applying learning by doing to inform complex objectives and pathways to those objectives. Hosted within an institution, regularly updated with new knowledge and used by a wide range of decision-makers, these could be termed living scenarios.

Living scenarios for Australia as an adaptive system

2012

Volume 2: Background papers 1 Australia's health: integrator and criterion of environmental and social conditions McMichael AJ 2 Health, population and climate change Butler CD 3 Australian population futures Hugo G 4 Settlement and the social dimensions of change Manderson L and Alford K 5 Physical realities and the sustainability transition Foran B 6 Feeding Australia Stirzaker R 7 Towards a resilience assessment for Australia Grigg N, Walker BH 8 What is a model? Why people don't trust them and why they should Boschetti F, Fulton EA, Bradbury RH, Symons J 9 Quantitative modelling of the human-Earth System: a new kind of science? Finnigan JJ, Brede M, Grigg N 10 Science to inform and models to engage Perez P 11 Economic approaches to modelling Adams P 12 Applying scenarios to complex issues Jones R 13 Alternative normative scenarios: economic growth, conservative development and post materialism Cocks D 14 The evolutionary nature of narratives about expansion and sustenance Raupach MR