ABSTRACT
However, only a few politicians and scientists are taking serious account of this situation. Only a few countries meet the target set by the United Nations to spend 0.7 per cent of their national product on development aid. Mainstream neo-liberal economic theorists continue to put their stakes on further deregulation of international trade and unconstrained economic growth. There are virtually no theories, concepts or visions of how a sustainable economic order might be developed without continued material growth in the richest countries of the world. This chapter focuses on one aspect of this larger issue, energy scarcity, and the particular role of China. It starts with facts and forecasts about the past and likely future of China’s economic development, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and their likely implications on world energy prices, and, derived from that, accessibility and mobility in the regions and cities of Europe. It reports results of the EU-funded research project STEPs (Scenarios for the Transport System and Energy Supply and Their Potential Effects) in which the likely effects of scenarios of energy scarcity on accessibility and economic performance of regions and cities, as well as on daily mobility and residential and firm location in metropolitan areas in Europe, were explored.
