A Great Transition to Coexistence: A Future for All

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed millions of lives since last year, is nothing short of the most devastating tragedy mankind has ever experienced. The global spread of this infectious disease has painfully accentuated two serious problems at hand: the climate crisis and the severity of inequality. New crises will continue to appear in various forms—diseases, heat waves, cold waves, food shortages, and water shortages, etc.—if we continue to destroy the environment and ecosystem as we do now. The pandemic and climate crisis have exacerbated the already intensified inequality under neoliberalism, undermining social cohesiveness and driving politics into a catastrophe. What we need to take heed of is the warning sound that our current ways of living need to change completely. We must now begin a great transformation of life and search for ways to coexist within the boundaries of the earth and society.

“Human time” is only a fleeting moment in the 4.6 billion years of earth’s history. Nevertheless, mankind has reigned over it as its ruler. The scientific circle estimates that our current lifestyle requires 1.7 planets to be sustained, and a gloomy outlook was recently forecasted that the tipping point for the climate crisis will be reached in 2040, ten years earlier than previously predicted. Despite such warnings, we are witnessing signs of a return to the past just as the end of the pandemic begins to appear faintly in the distance. As implied by the terms “revenge spending” and “recovery of industrial production” coined in the United States and advanced European countries, mankind is taking economic recovery―the resumption of earth’s exploitation―for granted. The International Energy Agency expects the second-largest increase in carbon emissions to be observed this year.

Meanwhile, there is a lack of solidarity and cooperation between classes and countries to overcome the crisis. The “vaccine inequality,” resulting from the greed of developed countries, is deepening the divide between the rich and the poor. The future is bleak for countries that lack the finances to protect citizens who have seen their incomes plummet due to the total lockdown or countries where vaccination progress to achieve herd immunity is slow. And yet developed countries, which have undergone industrialization early on and are largely responsible for the climate and ecological crisis, are ignoring this divide as shown by “vaccine inequality,” rather than helping to appease the pain experienced by the latecomer countries. According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in July, the world recorded an increase of 118 million hungry people in 2020 alone, but most of these people were concentrated in underdeveloped countries with 46 million in Africa, 57 million in Asia, and 14 million in Central America.

Mankind is being cornered into a checkmate, having to resolve inequality and disparity while also transitioning to a decarbonized economy. We have been given the difficult task of satisfying the needs and desires of members of society within the limits of earth. This task cannot be accomplished if we do not exercise the wisdom of coexistence. The way out of the checkmate is through the coexistence and solidarity between the winners and losers of the crisis and between the privileged and the marginalized. Still, there is a silver-lining here. A growing number of companies among those largely responsible for the climate crisis are committing “carbon neutrality.” Large financial capitals, whose reckless greed led to the financial crisis, are beginning to use ESG management as an important criterion for investment, taking into consideration not only the interests of their shareholders but also those of their stakeholders.

At the 12th Asia Future Forum, which will be held in October this year, participants will search for ways the planet and mankind can coexist. Saving the planet could save our lives. If we fail to address inequality and disparity, our lives will be left devastated. The search for a great transformation towards coexistence will be a great inspiration in finding a “better recovery” strategy for the post-COVID era. The Asia Future Forum will walk with you on this journey of great transformation.