The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future

by Laurence C. Smith

  48 World Urbanization Prospects: The 2007 Revision, United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2008.

  49 State of the World’s Cities 2008/2009, UN-HABITAT, 2008.

  50 Press Conference, United Nations Department of Public Information, News and Media Division, New York, February 26, 2008.

  51 UN-HABITAT Press Release, SOWC/08/PR2, 2008.

  52 Table I.7, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2007 Revision, United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2008.

  53 66.2% urban in 2050 versus 40.8% urban in 2007; whereas Europe was 72.2% urban in 2007 and is projected to be 76.2% urban in 2050. Table I.5, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2007 Revision, United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2008.

  54 The 40% figure is relative to the year 2007. UN model projections for 2050 (medium variant) are population of the world 9.191 billion, Africa 1.998 billion, China 1.409 billion, India 1.658 billion, Europe 0.664 billion, South America 0.516 billion, North America 0.445 billion. These and most other population projections from World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision Population Database, United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, viewed January 30, 2009.

  55 UN-HABITAT, 2008.

  56 Hong Kong is ranked first. This index was created by the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal and ranks the world’s countries using ten descriptors ranging from free trade to corruption. Singapore received 87 out of 100 possible points in 2009; the United States received 80 points out of 100, ranking it sixth behind Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. Nigeria received only 55 points, ranking it #117 out of 179 countries evaluated. Data from www.heritage.org/index, viewed January 28, 2009.

  57 Government of Singapore Investment Corporation and Temasek Holdings, V. Shih, “Tools of Survival: Sovereign Wealth Funds in Singapore and China,” Geopolitics 14, no. 2 (2009): 328-344; also http://www.temasekholdings.com.sg/media_centre_faq.htm (accessed November 16, 2009).

  58 Mass transit is so efficient and appealing in Singapore that it has far fewer cars per capita than other comparable cities. Only 5% of Singapore’s energy consumption goes into transportation, unlike Berlin (35%), London (26%), New York (36%), Tokyo (38%), Bologna (28%), Mexico City (53%), or Buenos Aires (49%). Figure 3.4.3, and 3.4.4 UN-HABITAT, 2008, p. 160.

  59 Allen J. Scott, Technopolis: High-Technology Industry and Regional Development in Southern California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 322 pp.

  60 H. Ghesquiere, Singapore’s Success: Engineering Economic Growth (Singapore: Thomson Learning, 2007).

  61 M. Gandy, “Planning, Anti-planning, and the Infrastructure Crisis Facing Metropolitan Lagos,” Urban Studies 43, no. 2 (2006): 371-396.

  62 E. Alemika, I. Chukwuma, “Criminal Victimization and Fear of Crime in Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria,” CLEEN Foundation Monograph Series, no. 1, 2005.

  63 J. Harnishfeger, “The Bakassi Boys: Fighting Crime in Nigeria,” Journal of Modern African Studies 41, no. 1 (2003): 23-49.

  64 “The State of Human Rights in Nigeria, 2005-2006,” National Human Rights Commission, Nigeria, 2006, http://web.ng.undp.org/publications/governance/STATE_OF_HUMAN_RIGHTS_REPORT_IN_NIGERIA.pdf (accessed March 31, 2010). Note: The events described in this document were not independently verified.

  65 P. 1, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World (Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Intelligence Council, 2008), 99 pp.

  66 “Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050,” Global Economics Paper no 99, Goldman Sachs (2003), 24 pp. Other, more recent model studies yield comparable results.

  67 E.g., from the global accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers, “The World in 2050: How Big Will the Major Emerging Market Economies Get and How Can the OECD Compete?” J. Hawksworth, Head of Macroeconomics, PWC (2006), 46 pp.; and the Japan Center for Economic Research, “Long-term Forecast of Global Economy and Population 2006-2050: Demographic change and the Asian Economy,” JCER (March 2007), 51 pp., and others.

  68 These data are from the above econometric model study of the BRICs by Goldman Sachs. All figures in inflation-adjusted 2003 U.S. dollars, for years 2003 and 2050, Appendix II, Global Paper no. 99, Goldman Sachs (2003). Rather than simply extrapolating current growth rates, the model prescribes a set of clear assumptions capturing how growth and development work. Some of these—like continued financial and institutional stability, openness to trade, and education, for example—could certainly change with the choices of future political leaders. The extent to which the 2008-09 global economic collapse might delay these particular projections is unclear, but as of April 2010 these developing economies were recovering sharply (see next).

  69 From 2007 to 2009, GDP grew 2.17%, 8.76%, 6.35% annually for Brazil, India, and China, respectively, and shrank -1.6%, -2.08%, and -3.07% in the U.S., Germany, and Japan. The revised Carnegie 2050 GDP projections are also from this study. U. Dadush and B. Stancil, “The G20 in 2050,” International Economic Bulletin, November 2009, http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=24195 (accessed November 26, 2009).

  70 “Brazil Takes Off,” The Economist 339, no. 8657 (November 12, 2009): 15.

  71 Dadush and Stancil (2009).

  72 The Goldman Sachs study projects Russia’s per capita income to rise to around USD $50,000 by 2050 (all figures in inflation-adjusted 2003 U.S. dollars).

  73 India’s per capita income in 2010 was less than USD $1,000; it is projected to rise to around USD $17,000 by 2050 (all figures in inflation-adjusted 2003 U.S. dollars).

  74 P. 99, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World (Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Intelligence Council, 2008), 99 pp.

  75 William A. V. Clark, The California Cauldron: Immigration and the Fortunes of Local Communities (New York: The Guilford Press, 1998), 224 pp.

  76 See note 15.

  77 For a good example of how population momentum is playing out in Asia, see S. B. Westley, “A Snapshot of Populations in Asia,” Asia-Pacific Population & Policy 59 (2002).

  78 0.55% per year in 2050, a global population doubling time of about 130 years, versus 1.02% in 2007, a doubling time of about 70 years. Data projections from World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision Population Database, United Nations Population Division, viewed January 29, 2009.

  79 L. Hayflick, “The Future of Ageing,” Nature 408 (2000): 267-269.

  80 One-half the population is older than the median age, and one-half is younger. All age data from World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision Population Database, United Nations Population Division, viewed January 29, 2009.

  81 Ibid.

  82 In our least-developed countries this is also exacerbated by low life expectancy owing to poor health care, poor nutrition, and violence.

  83 For example in Germany, a “rationing” of geriatric health care services is envisioned by 2050. R. Osterkamp, “Bevölkerungsentwicklung in Deutschland bis 2050 Demografische und ökonomische Konsequenzen für die Alterschirurgie,” Der Chirurg 76, no. 1 (2005).

  84 There is also the “youth dependency ratio,” defined as the number of individuals aged zero to fourteen divided by the number of individuals aged fifteen to sixty-four, and the “total dependency ratio,” defined as the sum of the youth dependency ratio and the elderly dependency ratio. The basic assumption behind these numeric ranges is that children under fifteen are in school and adults over sixty-four stop working, so both age groups are dependent, either upon working-age family members or upon state entitlement programs.

  85 R. Hutchens, K. L. Papps, “Developments in Phased Retirement,” in R. L. Clark, O. S. Mitchell, eds., Reinventing the Development Paradigm (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

  86 E. Calvo, K. Haverstick, S. A. Sass, “Gradual Retirement, Sense of Control, and Retirees’ Happiness,” Research on Aging 31, no. 1 (2009).

  87 “Japan’s Pensioners Embark on ‘Grey Crime’
Wave,” The Independent, April 13, 2006; “Report: More Elderly Japanese Turn to Petty Crime,” CNN Asia, December 24, 2008.

  88 See note 79.

  89 P. 22, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World (Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Intelligence Council, 2008), 99 pp.

  90 “The People Crunch,” The Economist 390, no. 8614 (January 13, 2009).

  91 Direct material imports of 3.2 metric tons of fossil fuel, between 8 and 9 tons of renewable raw materials including water, and between 11 and 15 tons of ores and minerals. These estimates were calculated at the country level, but Sweden is 85% urban. V. Palm, K. Jonsson, “Materials Flow Accounting in Sweden Material Use for National Consumption and for Export,” Journal of Industrial Ecology 7, no. 1, (2003): 81-92.

  92 This materials accounting was monitored in 2004 for one full year. S. Niza, L. Rosado, “Methodological Advances in Urban Material Flow Accounting: The Lisbon Case Study,” presented at ConAccount 2008, Urban Metabolism, Measuring the Ecological City, Prague, September 11-12, 2008.

  93 For unknown reasons this link between urban growth and natural resource supply has been historically ignored in urbanization research. Of particular importance to China’s cities are cement, steel, aluminum, and coal. L. Shen, S. Cheng, A. J. Gunson, H. Wan, “Urbanization, Sustainability and the Utilization of Energy and Mineral Resources in China,” Cities 22, no. 4 (2005): 287-302.

  94 Both factors have contributed heavily to the export economies of newly industrializing countries. Often heavy industries have expanded even faster than consumer manufacturing. Such countries are exporting not only T-shirts and computer components but also steel, machinery, and chemicals.

  95 Malthus’ book was, in fact, hugely influential on the young Charles Darwin, helping him to arrive at his theory of Natural Selection some six decades later. The full title of the first edition, which Malthus published anonymously in 1798, was An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other Writers (London: printed for J. Johnson, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard). Later versions appeared under his own name. This landmark book is still in print and remains controversial to this day.

  96 Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968), discussed in Chapter 1, and a number of other books. The late Julian Simon rebuts Ehrlich in The Ultimate Resource (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981) and others, arguing that the only limit to human growth is human ingenuity.

  97 This expansion of Malthus’ ideas beyond issues of food production began in the 1800s, including by British economist David Ricardo, who discussed mineral deposits, and W. Stanley Jevons, who, in 1865, predicted that limits to coal reserves would ultimately halt the country’s economic growth. Within a century Jevon’s predictions of “peak coal” proved correct.

  98 Data sources for the World Reserves table are the BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2008, 45 pp., www.bp.com/statisticalreview (accessed February 12, 2009) (oil, gas, coal through 2007); and World Metals & Minerals Review 2005 (London: British Geological Survey and Metal Bulletin, 2005), 312 pp. (through 2003). Natural gas is converted to LNG (1 metric ton liquefied natural gas = 48,700 cubic feet). “Titanium” is TiO2. Platinum group includes platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, osmium, and ruthenium. Assumed human population is 6,830,000,000 (2010 estimate, United Nations).

  99 A single cubic kilometer of average crustal rock contains 200,000,000 metric tons of aluminum, 100,000,000 metric tons of iron, 800,000 metric tons of zinc, and 200,000 metric tons of copper, so mineral exhaustion in the molecular sense is meaningless. D. W. Brooks, P. W. Andrews, “Mineral Resources, Economic Growth, and World Population,” Science 185 (1974): 13-10.

  100 For more on this discussion of mineral exhaustion and the perils of a fixed-stock approach to resource assessment, see John E. Tilton, On Borrowed Time? Assessing the Threat of Mineral Depletion (Washington, D.C.: RFF Press, 2002), 160 pp.

  101 Matthew R. Simmons, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2005), 428 pp.

  102 A very detailed analysis comes from the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan. The authors use the Goldman Sachs BRICs and G6 economic projections discussed in Chapter 2 to project future demand for twenty-two metals. K. Halada, M. Shimada, K. Ijima, “Forecasting of the Consumption of Metals up to 2050,” Materials Transactions 49, no. 3 (2008): 402-410.

  103 J. B. Legarth, “Sustainable Metal Resource Management—the Need for Industrial Development: Efficiency Improvement Demands on Metal Resource Management to Enable a Sustainable Supply until 2050,” Journal of Cleaner Production 4, no. 2 (1996): 97-104; see also C. M. Backman, “Global Supply and Demand of Metals in the Future,” Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, 71 (2008): 1244-1254.

  104 Unconventional oil is much more difficult to extract and includes materials that are often excavated, like oil shales and tar sands, and high-viscosity oils.

  105 Based on their analysis of eight hundred oil fields, including all fifty-four “supergiants” containing five billion or more barrels, the International Energy Agency estimates the world average production-weighted decline rate is currently about 6.7% for fields that have passed their production peak, rising to 8.6% decline by 2030. World Energy Outlook 2008, OECD/IEA, 578 pp.

  106 U.S. Crude Oil Field Production data, U.S. Energy Information Administration, http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpus1&f=a (accessed March 31, 2010).

  107 This paragraph drawn from remarks by James Schlesinger, p. 31, summary of the National Academies Summit on America’s Energy Future, Washington, D.C., 2008.

  108 This is not to suggest that these areas aren’t or won’t be developed. Turkmenistan, one of the last and most recent countries in the Caspian Sea region to be opened to foreign hydrocarbon development, had no fewer than fifteen petroleum companies seeking to launch activities in 2009, including China National Oil Corporation, Gazprom, Lukoil-ConocoPhillips, Midland Consortium, and Schlumberger, an oil field services company. Turkmenistan’s Crude Awakening: Oil, Gas and Environment in the South Caspian (Alexandria, Va.: Crude Accountability, 2009), 87 pp.

  109 Drawn from remarks by former U.S. secretaries of energy James Schlesinger and Samuel Bodman to the National Academies Summit on America’s Energy Future, Washington, D.C., 2008.

  110 This model projection by the International Energy Agency was revised downward from earlier forecasts to account for the 2008 global economic slowdown. It assumes that oil prices will average $100 per barrel during 2008-2015, then steadily rise to $120 by 2030. World Energy Outlook 2008, OECD/IEA (2008), 578 pp.

  111 D. Goodstein, Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005), 148 pp.; M. Klare, Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2002), 304 pp.; and Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy, reprint ed. (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2009), 352 pp.; M. Simmons, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy (Somerset, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2005), 428 pp.

  112 On average, postpeak oil field decline rates are 3.4% for supergiant fields, 6.5% for giant fields, and 10.4% for large fields, World Energy Outlook 2008, OECD/IEA (2008), 578 pp.

  113 A successful Al Qaeda attack on the Abqaia facilities would have shocked world oil markets, as it handles two-thirds of the Saudi Arabian oil supply. National Academies Summit on America’s Energy Future, Washington, D.C., 2008, p. 9.

  114 There are major obstacles to a rapid transition to hydrogen fuel-cell cars, as will be described shortly.

  115 Specifically from ozone and particulates. M. Jerrett et al., “Long-Term Ozone Exposure and Mortality,” New England Journal of Medicine 360 (2009): 1085-1095.

  116 Only if the electricity supplying the grid comes from clean, renewable sources does the plug-in automotive fleet
become pollution- and carbon-free. But depending on the efficiency of the coal- or gas-fired power plant, and how many miles the electricity travels over high-voltage lines, the net balance of this trade-off still generally comes down on the side of plug-in electrics. Also, it is more feasible to recapture pollution and greenhouse gases from hundreds of power station smokestacks than from millions of car tailpipes, particularly with regard to carbon capture and storage (CCS) schemes.

  117 Hydrogen is highly reactive and thus quickly combines with other elements, for example with oxygen to make water (H2O).

  118 Nearly all electric utility power is made using some outside source of energy to turn a mechanically rotating turbine, to spin a tightly wound coil of copper wire inside of a fixed magnetic field. This produces a flow of electrons in the copper wire that we call electricity. Windmills, hydroelectric dams, coal-fired power plants, and nuclear power plants all use variants of this basic idea to make electricity, the main difference between them being the source of energy used to spin the turbine. For example, heat generated by burning coal or from a controlled nuclear reaction can be used to boil water, producing pressurized steam, which passes over a turbine. Building a dam across a river creates an artificial waterfall, allowing the weight of water to fall upon turbines, and so on.

  119 In hydrolysis, electricity is used to split water molecules into pure hydrogen and oxygen. It is a common way to obtain pure hydrogen.

  120 In terms of radiative physics, tropospheric water vapor is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. However, owing to its short residence time in the atmosphere—on average just eleven days—it does not linger long before returning to the Earth’s surface. In contrast, carbon dioxide can persist in the atmosphere for centuries, so its concentration steadily accumulates over time.

  121 Energy Technology Perspectives—Scenarios and Strategies to 2050 (OECD/International Energy Agency, 2006), 483 pp.

  122 Ethanol is more corrosive than gasoline, so engines running on 100% ethanol require specially resistant plastic and rubber components and hardened valve seats. It also has lower energy content than gasoline, so can yield lower mileage results relative to gasoline. However, owing to its high octane of 115, ethanol can be used as an octane enhancer in gasoline instead of groundwater-polluting MTBE. R. E. Sims et al., “Energy Crops: Current Status and Future Prospects,” Global Change Biology 12 (2006): 2054-2076.