From the Limits to Growth to Sustainable Development: to the 50th Anniversary of the Report to the Club of Rome “Limits to Growthâ€

Half a century has passed since the report to the Club of Rome “Limits to Growth†shocked the whole world, making it realize that we live on the finite planet in terms of its resource capabilities. The work is directly related to such concepts as “resource and environmental constraints to economic growth†, “limits to growth†and “sustainable development†. The Club of Rome is often credited with the idea of “zero population and industrial growth†as supposedly sufficient conditions for stabilizing the system. However, the organization’s reports emphasize that a strategy of zero industrial and population growth alone can only briefly delay the onset of a crisis, but not prevent it. Not all economists accept the ideas of the Club of Rome, this being only one of the theories of the development of society. At the same time, it is impossible not to mention the contribution that the theory of the Club of Rome made to the development of modern concepts of development, taking into account the task of preserving the environment, the planet as a whole. It is necessary to mention the concept of “sustainable development†, which became especially popular after the UN International Conference on Environment and Development (1992). The concept was adopted as a guide to action by many developed and developing countries, and first of all by China. It is noted that China is a world leader in the implementation of the concept of “sustainable development†in practice and has achieved significant success in this area. The predicted crisis at this stage was overcome due to the fact that in the last few decades there has been a noticeable turn to the green economic development in the world. In this process, the author sees the undoubted merit of the Club of Rome. The purpose of the article is to show its role in these processes. According to UN experts, China's population growth in the next thirty years will stop, and after 2050 it will be replaced by a reduction. China's rapidly growing economy in many indicators of sustainable development (resource and energy conservation, as well as servicization) has reached Western standards, in many respects surpassing them.