This is the sixth in a series of reports produced by the Working Group on Climate Change and Development, an alliance of environment and development NGOs, which is coordinated by nef (the new economics foundation) and IIED (the International Institute for Environment and Development).
The first five reports highlighted the threat from global warming to human development and the need for a collective, rapid and equally comprehensive response. Altogether they highlighted the urgent need for new development models. This sixth report explores potential new models which might both address climate change and be resilient to it. The report has forewords by Rajendra Pachauri (Chair of the IPCC) and environmental economist Herman Daly. There are contributions from well known environmental thinkers as Wangari Maathai, Manfred Max-Neef and others.
The paper by Max-Neef perhaps best articulates the thrust of the arguments presented in the report. In it, he argues for a new economy based on five postulates (the economy is to serve the people; development is about people and not about objects; growth is not the same as development; no economy is possible in the absence of ecosystem services; and the economy is a subsystem of a larger and finite system, the biosphere, hence permanent growth is impossible)
and one fundamental value principle (no economic interest can be above the reverence for life).
You can download the report here and the earlier five reports here.
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