The Club of Rome, a group of experts to help humanity face emergency situations

2023-05-30 07:02:07

More than 1,960 scientists, economists, international civil servants and industrialists from many countries work together at the Club of Rome to identify holistic solutions to global problems.

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Known for his famous report Meadows, a study published in 1972 that was the first to alert the world to the dangers of economic and population growth for the environment, the Club of Rome is accelerating to face the worst scenarios predicted five decades earlier. ” What has changed since this report is the notion of temporality: we now have to both build the plane and fly, so both respond to the short term while setting up a vision for the future, reconciling creativity and strategy , especially with a growing populism that creates fear and withdrawal », describes Sandrine Dixson-Declève, co-president of the rome club with Mamphela Ramphele, who notably fought against Apartheid alongside Steve Biko.

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Sandrine Dixson-Declève opened her eyes to environmental issues from her childhood in California, faced in particular with severe droughts. After studying international relations, she completed a master’s degree in environmental sciences, convinced that the necessary changes had to be undertaken on an international scale. His professional career has also made him collaborate with Al Gore, John Kerry, the Prince of Wales, the United Nations, but also industrial players ” to understand their dynamics and make them evolve from within “. It was during her work on the environmental measurements of the Belgian nuclear site, Tihange, that she had a miscarriage, which she attributed to the pollution of the soil of this installation, which few cared about at the time.

More diversity and concrete actions

In 2018, she therefore became the first woman at the head of the Club of Rome for 50 years, the youngest and the first Belgian. Since 1968, this think tank has brought together scientists, economists, international civil servants and industrialists from many countries to identify holistic solutions to global problems, but also to promote initiatives to enable humanity to emerge from planetary emergency situations. With the appointments of Sandrine Dixson-Declève and Mamphela Ramphele, it is experiencing changes with the opening of members to more diversity, sex, age, origin, but also and above all by the translation of all the knowledge collected and produced in concrete, deep and lasting actions.

Five new hubs within the Club of Rome

Five hubs are then created for this:

  • the urgency for the planet, whether in terms of climate change, the disappearance of biodiversity and their human impact, and thus positively influence international negotiations but also stimulate changes in attitude in terms of consumption;
  • reframe the economy that Sandrine Dixson-Declève wants to transform into a regenerative and well-being economy for all that values ​​natural and social capital in its accounts with appropriate indicators “. The Club of Rome collaborates for this with Kate Raworth, author of the famous Donut Theory, or Tim Jackson, champion of prosperity without growth;
  • rethinking finance;
  • to bring about a new civilization through human revolution;
  • give leadership to youth and foster intergenerational dialogues to shape the future.

A survival guide for mankind

From their work was born a book published in 2022, Earth for All – A Survival Guide for Humanitytranslated into French in September 2023. It updates the famous report in the context of today’s world. Meadows. Designed with a group of leading scientists and economists, it presents two alternative scenarios – Too little, too late or The giant leap – and five stages of system change that can end poverty and inequality, uplift marginalized people, and transform our food and energy systems by 2050. According to Sandrine Dixson-Declève, “ we must act now and fight against the growing obscurantism of the populists, who are campaigning for a step backwards, as they have done for example by blocking European laws on the protection of biodiversity and against pesticides ».

The strength of the transformative approach

For this, the organization does not spare its efforts because in addition to responding to requests from countries such as Singapore, Ukraine or the Pacific Islands, it organizes citizens’ assemblies, produces documentaries soon to be available on Netflix and Arte, but also conferences around the world to detail the possibilities of change. ” The originality and the strength of the Club of Rome reside in its transdisciplinary, cross-border, transgenerational, transorganizational approaches, in a word: transformative. “Summarizes Sandrine Dixson-Declève.

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