Financing sustainable development

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Financing for Sustainable Development

ABSTRACT: The We the Peoples / We the Students Initiative focuses on ‘how’ to achieve full financing for Sustainable Development (SD) before the end of 2010, at the latest. Our Initiative includes both strategy formulation and strategy implementation. It is a working strategy that provides, by said date:

Complete funding for allSustainable Development (SD) components ; and

The required front-loaded funds to avoid carbon lock-in.

As stated, this Initiative encompasses both formulation and implementation stages. The focus is on the 'how' rather than on the 'whether': because we all accept 'whether' – but it is the 'how' that has eluded us so far. Importantly, funding strategy has already undergone “proof of concept”validation at test market site (Mexico). Initiative will undergo (outside conducted) comprehensive pilot testing / statistical survey validation in Mexico during early 2009 – in preparation for worldwide expansion during 2009 / 2010. Initiative will provide full SD funding before the end of 2010, at the latest. Our mechanism design optimizing formulas are mathematically based. As such they inexorablybring about the outcomes they were designed to.

BACKGROUND: Some 8 years ago, (I was 14 at the time) seeing the damage being inflicted upon our planet, a grown-up and myself decided to reinvent ourselves: applying operations research and field-research / pilot-testing methodology to crack the Sustainable Development (SD) equation. This sounds very fancy but can be equated to applying commonsense to the quandary at hand...

We sought to respond to the question posed some time ago by legendary Edward Wilson: "What would it take to provide a satisfying and sustainable life for everyone into the indefinite future?"

This summarizes the Action Plan that resulted.

Jacinto Gomez-Mont (my "technical ally") provided the scientific tools required for the job at hand. I (ConstanzaGomez-Mont) provided the implementation strategy, the community approach as well as the can-do attitude for a task immensely larger that ourselves. I humbly pose that – eight years down the line - we have succeeded; having produced the first Initiative that addresses / resolves all SD components holistically: within the 2005-2015 “tipping-point” time-frame given to us by scientists of the stature of JimHansen / Nicholas Stern / the Pacala-Socolow team / John Holdren et al.

2015 is just around the corner: a mere seven years. So, as Crispin Tickell wisely stated, we cannot afford to pussyfoot any longer.

THE INVESTMENT REQUIRED TO TACKLE SD (1,000 million = 1 billion – all figures is US dollars):

Insofar Global Climate Instability, the latest scientific and economic analysis, including theStern Review, Design to Win, the Vattenfall Climate map prepared by McKinsey & Company et al, and reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, concluded that about 80 percent of the needed mitigation – 25 gigatons of carbon – can be achieved with existing technologies. So, the problem essentially boils down to money. This is why our strategy is financial; as all other components arebasically in place. Merely required is a (non-game theory) methodology that provides amounts previously unheard of.

Our strategy is the first one that has the distinct possibility to stabilize Greenhouse Gases at 450 ppm CO2-e (max overshoot) and the eventual mitigation of such to 400 ppm CO2-e levels. We are the very first to detail how this extremely-ambitious plan can be funded (400 ppm CO2-eis “financially unrealistic” according to Stern – though recent Vattenfall / McKinsey research prove otherwise). According to Vattenfall / McKinsey et al, Global Climate Instability can be tackled in the range of 1% to 1.6% of Gross World Product (much agreement). This translates into $530 billion USD per year. This is a bargain, because the cost of doing nothing can reduce Gross World Product...