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Abstract

Sustainable development aims to preserve the continuity of life and enable human development within the framework of a planet with finite resources. Physical resources include renewable flow resources, such as solar radiation, the water cycle or biomass, and non-renewable finite stock resources such as minerals and fossil fuels; but there are also ecosystem resources, such as environmental health and species biodiversity, essential for life.

Simply changing fossil fuels for renewable sources of energy does not in itself guarantee a change to sustainable development, although it is unavoidable to recover less devastating climate and environmental pollution scenarios.

Sustainable development at the end of the fossil age appears as a true change of civilization. It presents multiple and different facets that need to be addressed in their entirety and interdependence and that have in common the need to reverse many practices that have been harmful to the natural environment and, in turn, to humanity.

Today there is a very broad consensus around the idea that a priority task is to face the climate emergency, trying to mitigate it and reverse it as soon as possible. And this involves fundamentally changing the energy matrix, abandoning fossil fuels and building a new renewable energy system. Without recourse to the intensive and easily available energy of fossils, a new balance will have to be found in the use and management of basic resources for the sustenance of life and human civilizations; that is, energy, water, food, the natural environment and biodiversity.

But we live in a situation in which there is a lot of talk about the urgency of this change of model, having even declared a climate emergency (it is the topic of the moment), international agreements are established but without a real will to change .

At the same time, speeches are repeatedly made about the supposed economic benefits of certain growth rates, with totally outdated rates, which invite society to remain passive, while we are getting poorer, stubborn to preserve an outdated model.

The aim of this communication is to contribute to laying the foundations for this important transformation and specifically in:; A) the reconversion of economic activities towards a "sustainable" economy; B) the productive, labor and professional reconversion C) Incorporation of Biophysical accounting in the economy and D) The impetus of the economy centered on new values ​​and new forms of social and political organization appropriate to the collective responsibilities of the new society towards sustainability.

Keywords: sustainable development, climate crisis, energy transition, resources, renewable energies

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