Growth Story of the 21st Century

Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and Chair of the Global School of Sustainability at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He has held posts at other UK and overseas universities and as Chief Economist at both the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank. He was at the UK Treasury, 2003–2007, where he was Second Permanent Secretary and Head of the UK Government Economic Service, led the writing of the report of the Commission for Africa (2005), and produced the Stern Review on the economics of climate change in 2006. He has served as President of the European Economic Association (2009), of the Royal Economic Society (2018–2019), and of the British Academy (2013–2017). He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (June 2014). He was knighted for services to economics (2004), made a life peer (2007), and appointed Companion of Honour for services to economics, international relations, and tackling climate change in 2017. He has published more than 25 books and over 200 articles

• List of figures and tables Foreword by Dr Ngozi Okonjo-IwealaAbout the authorPrefaceAcknowledgementsAcronym listIntroduction 1PART I. FOUNDATIONS: A WORLD RE-DRAWNAND AN URGENT AGENDA FOR ACTION1. How we got here, and where to now 1.1 Lessons from the two decades following the Stern Review 1.2 The new objective: from growth to sustainability1.3 Extraordinary advances and deep challenges1.4 International agreements: the significance of Paris, COP211.5 Growth: received theories, change, and the new vision1.6 Concluding remarks: towards sustainable development2. Some fundamentals: science and nature2.1 The forces and the dangers2.2 Risks, urgency, overshooting, tipping points, and carbon budgets2.3 Adaptation, hazards, vulnerability, and development2.4 Nature: biodiversity and climate2.5 Concluding remarks: the science is clear and sets the timetable3. More fundamentals: politics, economics, ethics3.1 Politics and its intersections with history and geography3.2 Economics and ethics3.3 Ways forward for constructive analysis in economics and thesocial sciences3.4 Concluding remarks: to my fellow economists4. A changing world: new opportunities and an agendafor action4.1 Forces for change: public pressure and legal accountability4.2 Technology, innovation, and the private sector4.3 International action in a changing world4.4 A new geopolitics4.5 Concluding remarks: the agendaPART II. THE NEW GROWTH STORY: INVESTMENT, INNOVATION, AND FUNDAMENTAL STRUCTURALCHANGE5. Rising to the challenges: the key elements of a new growth story5.1 The drivers of growth5.2 Economy-wide integrated action5.3 Errors in common counterarguments5.4 Investment across sectors and geographies5.5 Development, poverty reduction, and climate action 5.6 Concluding remarks: the new growth and development story6. Perspectives, policies, institutions: actions for rapid structural transformation and sustainable growth6.1 Concepts and perspectives: technologies and systems6.2 Fostering investment: strategies, systems, and platforms6.3 Incentive structures for the new economy: tackling market failures6.4 Financial structures for the new economy6.5 Distribution and a just transition6.6 Macroeconomic challenges6.7 Concluding remarks: opportunities, choices, trade-offs, and commitment7. The role of the state in a changing world7.1 The confusions, failures, and dangers of market fundamentalism7.2 The role of the state in driving change: crisis, urgency, and systemic transformation7.3 Global public goods and internationalism7.4 Institutions, rights, and behaviours7.5 Political economy7.6 Concluding remarks: recasting the role of the statePART III. INTERNATIONAL ACTION8. Transformation of the international economy: interdependencies, new structures and geographies, differences across nations8.1 An interdependent world8.2 A new global economic geography8.3 New opportunities: new resources, new players, competition8.4 Natural capital: investment and impact8.5 Differences between nations: EMDCs’ huge energy potential and infrastructure needs8.6 Concluding remarks: opportunity, international cooperation, and a new economic geography9. International action for sustainable development: investment, finance, and collaboration9.1 Future foundations: restoring trust and building new leadership 9.2 The investment imperative: what is needed where9.3 Mobilising finance: international collaboration9.4 Technology, industrial policy, trade, and innovation9.5 Aligning global climate and biodiversity action9.6 Overshooting, negative emissions, geoengineering9.7 Concluding remarks: a global response to a global challengePART IV. GALVANISING ACTION10. Fallacies and confusions; obstacles and the risk of failure10.1 Fallacies from advocates of weak or delayed action10.2 Confusion and misdirection10.3 Obstacles, action to tackle them, and the research agenda10.4 Crucial issues that get too little attention: adaptation and biodiversity10.5 Concluding remarks: dispelling fallacies and overcoming obstacles to action 11. Prospects for success: opportunity, urgency, multilateralism11.1 Retrospect: developments since the Stern Review11.2 Prospect: fostering action and an agenda for economics and the social sciences11.3 Multilateralism11.4 Concluding remarks: ‘Yes, we can’; success is possibleReference listIndex