Sitting in the 19th meeting of the International Resource Panel in Paris, France. Best part about it is that my draft report Resource Requirements of Future Urbanization – sailed through the IRP and the Steerig Committeee. This means that subject to a few technical changes, it will now go forward to peer review and hopefully publication early next year. It has taken three years to compile this unique report, and I co-coordinated this team drawn from Berkeley, Paris, Utrecht, CSIRO in Australia, Minneapolis and Stellenbosch University. So exciting it has got this far. I think our key achievements were to quantify the resources required if the urban population doubles without any changes to the urban system, followed by chapters that suggest radical changes to densities, infrastructure and governance to promote an urban transition. Best session was a keynote by Tim Jackon from the UK – he seems to working on the intersection between material flows, psych-cultural behaviour that transcends individualism and consumerism, and most importantly of all a ‘post-growth macroeconomic’ paradigm. Very exciting stuff – worth checking out his Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity.
well done Mark Swilling.
well done Mark Swilling.
Great work
Great work
Congratulations Prof Mark Swilling
Congratulations Prof Mark Swilling