South Africa 2035 Learning From The Future
Channel: Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership
Date: 2013-11-22

What might South Africa be like in 2035? At a side event during COP17 in Durban in Dec 2011, hosted by the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership (CPSL), two sustainable economy experts, Anton Cartwright and the late Peet Du Plooy, were asked to imagine visiting us from 2035, to tell us what life was like then. They were given two clues: carbon dioxide was being taxed at ZAR700 (c.$100) per tonne, and the economy was doing pretty well. This video is an animated 11-minute summary of the picture they painted for us over an hour of spontaneous dialogue.
It was inspiring stuff, often delightfully funny, and left the audience realising that, with a few common-sense tweaks here and there and the odd smart new 'app', the future could quite plausibly be a much pleasanter place to live in than we might have thought. What might this tell us about how we can create a future we would like to live in?
Animation is by Stellenbosch-based Jincom Publishing. For more about CPSL visit www.cpsl.cam.ac.uk