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In a nutshell
- Our current economic model is headed toward social collapse by 2100, with declining well-being despite economic growth, rising inequality, and dangerous climate change above 2°C.
- Scientists identified five “extraordinary turnarounds” (poverty reduction, inequality fixes, women’s empowerment, food system reform, and clean energy) that could flip this trajectory if implemented together.
- The key insight: rising social tensions from inequality make it harder for governments to tackle long-term problems, creating a vicious cycle that only coordinated global action can break.
OSLO, Norway — By 2100, despite having more money in our pockets, most of us could be living worse lives than we are today. That’s the stark warning from a new study that upends everything we think we know about progress and prosperity.
Researchers from top universities across Europe have developed a sophisticated computer model that tracks how human well-being evolves over the next 75 years. Their results are unsettling: Our current economic system, left unchanged, will likely trigger rising social tensions, worsening environmental damage, and declining quality of life even as economies continue to grow.
But the researchers identified five specific policy changes that could completely flip this trajectory. They call them “extraordinary turnarounds,” and their modeling shows these interventions could create a world where most people thrive while protecting the planet.
The study, published in the journal Global Sustainability, comes from the Earth4All initiative, a group of scientists who wanted to understand whether it’s actually possible to improve life for everyone while staying within Earth’s environmental limits. Their answer? Yes, but only if we act fast and think big.
GDP Isn’t Telling the Whole Story
Most economists and politicians use gross domestic product (GDP) as their primary measure of success. If GDP goes up, we assume life is getting better. But the researchers behind this study argue that’s dangerously outdated thinking.
Instead, they created what they call a “wellbeing index” that measures five key factors: how much disposable income people have, global warming levels, government spending on public services, inequality between rich and poor, and whether people feel like their lives are improving over time.
“The scenarios suggest that today’s dominant economic policies are likely to lead to rising social tensions, worsening environmental pressures, and declining well-being,” the researchers write.
Their computer model, called Earth4All-global, simulates how these factors interact over decades. The model incorporates everything from population growth and energy consumption to political stability and environmental damage.
Two Dramatically Different Futures
The team ran two main scenarios to see where we’re headed. The first, dubbed “Too Little, Too Late,” assumes we keep making decisions the same way we have since 1980; some environmental progress, but no fundamental changes to how our economic system works.
Under this scenario, the model predicts a grim future. Global temperatures rise well above 2°C, pushing us into dangerous climate territory. Inequality continues widening. Most troubling, the researchers found that rising social tensions would make it increasingly difficult for governments to tackle long-term challenges like climate change.
The second scenario, called “Giant Leap,” imagines governments and businesses implementing five major policy overhauls starting around 2022. When the researchers ran their Giant Leap scenario, the results were striking. Despite implementing policies that might seem economically disruptive, like higher taxes and massive government spending, the model shows overall economic growth continuing while environmental damage decreases and social tensions ease.
Perhaps most importantly, their well-being index steadily improves throughout the century in the Giant Leap scenario, while it declines in the business-as-usual case despite continued economic growth.
The Five Policy Turnarounds That Could Save Society From Total Collapse
So what exactly are these five turnarounds that could transform our future?
Poverty Turnaround: Massive investments in developing countries to rapidly reduce extreme poverty through debt cancellation, infrastructure spending, and productivity improvements.
Inequality Turnaround: Higher taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations, combined with universal basic income programs and stronger worker protections.
Empowerment Turnaround: Major investments in women’s health, education, and economic opportunities, aiming for true gender equality worldwide.
Food Turnaround: Revolutionizing agriculture through sustainable farming practices, reducing food waste, and shifting toward more plant-based diets.
Energy Turnaround: Aggressive deployment of renewable energy, massive improvements in energy efficiency, and deployment of carbon capture technologies.
The researchers’ key insight is that all five need to happen together, and fast. In the Giant Leap scenario, global warming is kept below 2°C throughout the century, with a declining trend toward 2100. Population growth slows as education and opportunities improve, reducing pressure on natural resources.
One of the study’s most innovative contributions is how it tracks “social tension”—essentially, how angry and divided a society becomes when people feel left behind.
The model shows that when inequality grows and people feel like they’re not making progress, social tensions rise. “If citizens experience increasing inequality and limited public investments, then this causes decreasing trust in governmental institutions,” the study explains. When angry citizens lose trust in institutions, it becomes harder for governments to implement long-term policies, which leads to more problems and even angrier citizens.
“By integrating a social tension index and a well-being index, we have been able to highlight the importance of social dynamics in climate scenarios,” explained co-author Nathalie Spittler of BOKU University. “Achieving climate goals is not just a question of technological and economic developments. If wellbeing declines and social tensions rise, this creates a negative feedback loop where the very conditions needed for transformational change become harder to achieve.”
Because people feel like their lives are improving in the Giant Leap scenario, they maintain trust in institutions and support for long-term thinking. Making our economy more equal and sustainable might actually make most people better off, not worse off, even if it means slower GDP growth or higher taxes for the wealthy.
The study shows we have a brief window — roughly this decade — to implement these changes before social and environmental problems become too severe to manage. The choice isn’t between the status quo and radical change. It’s between controlled transformation and chaotic collapse. Based on their modeling, the path we’re currently on leads to a world none of us want to live in—regardless of how much money we have.
Paper Summary
Methodology
Researchers developed a computer simulation model called Earth4All-global that tracks global development from 1980 to 2100. The model uses system dynamics to show how economic, social, and environmental factors influence each other over time. They created a wellbeing index based on five components: disposable income, global warming, government spending, inequality, and perceived progress. The team designed two main scenarios: “Too Little, Too Late” (continuing current decision-making patterns) and “Giant Leap” (implementing five major policy turnarounds). The model was calibrated using historical data from 1980-2020 to ensure it accurately reflects past trends.
Results
The business-as-usual scenario shows declining wellbeing despite economic growth, with global temperatures rising above 2°C, increasing inequality, and rising social tensions that undermine government effectiveness. The Giant Leap scenario, implementing five turnarounds around poverty, inequality, empowerment, food, and energy, shows improving wellbeing throughout the century, with global warming kept below 2°C and reduced social tensions. The study found that social tension acts as a critical feedback loop—when people lose trust in institutions due to inequality and lack of progress, it becomes harder for governments to implement long-term solutions.
Limitations
The model is highly simplified and cannot make precise predictions about specific events or timing. The researchers acknowledge that crossing critical environmental tipping points makes the future increasingly unpredictable. The study relies on quantitative proxies for complex social phenomena like wellbeing and social tension. The five turnarounds in the Giant Leap scenario are implemented as external assumptions rather than emerging naturally from the model’s dynamics. Long-term projections beyond 2060 are particularly uncertain.
Funding and Disclosures
The Earth4All initiative was hosted by the Club of Rome and co-funded by the Bennett Foundation and Laudes Foundation. Additional funding came from Mistra, Formas, and the European Research Council. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Publication Information
This research was published in Global Sustainability, volume 8, article e22, pages 1-9, in 2025. The paper was titled “The Earth4All scenarios: human wellbeing on a finite planet towards 2100” and was authored by Per Espen Stoknes, David Collste, Sarah E. Cornell, Ben Callegari, Nathalie Spittler, Owen Gaffney, and Jorgen Randers from institutions in Norway, Sweden, and Austria.