This is a good point. I have addressed it in my recent book ('Degrowth', 2018, @agendapub) and in my work with @jasonhickel. Let me summarise and hopefully clarify for the sake of a better conversation. THREAD /1
Our claim is NOT that the relationship between GDP and GHGs is immutable, or a law of physics. (If I have used language in my less mature texts that made it seem so, my apologies – but I don’t think I did ☺). /2
Indeed, if that were the case, then the only way to reduce GHGs to 0 would be to halt all economic activity, an absurd conclusion, for which we would not have to wait for the current crisis to prove it wrong. /3
There might (debatably) be a case for an immutable coupling of economic activity to material/energy use as a whole - but not for any specific resource, such as fossil fuels, that can in principle be substituted. /4
The historical coupling of GHGs and GDP, however, shows how tightly connected and dependent really existing capitalist economies are to fossil fuels – a useful reminder to those prone to paper exercises of fast decarbonization with green growth. /5
The degrowth argument is that to reduce carbon emissions, more than likely, will have to BOTH reduce the carbon intensity of the economy (clean energies, alt transportation, etc) and – selectively – the scale of the economy, focusing on slowing down carbon-intensive activities./6
As @ProfTimJackson & @KevinClimate have shown, the rates of reduction in carbon intensity necessary to stay within 1.5 or 2oC are exorbitant. Slightly more realistic with a steady or decreasing global GDP (through decreases in high income countries). kevinanderson.info/blog/avoiding-…
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Or to put it differently, it seems much more doable to decarbonize a global economy at its current size, or slightly smaller, than one that is 11 times bigger (the size of the global economy by the end of this century, at 3% growth each year). / 8
As @J_Lovering showed for @TheBTI, economies that have shown signs of absolute decoupling all ‘experienced much slower growth’. thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/…. Had growth there been closer to the ‘normal’ 3%, there probably wouldn’t have been any absolute decoupling. /9
Does this rule out absolute decoupling axiomatically? No. But there are serious questions whether realistic levels of absolute decoupling will be sufficient, as long as growth continues at 2-3% each year. /10
Indeed our research with @jasonhickel shows that currently no climate model squares growth with staying within 1.5 0C, other than by assuming –untested for the time and highly unlikely to realize – ‘negative emission technologies’ tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108… /11
The only model that does strike a sustainable path without assuming negative emissions assumes degrowth in global energy use by 40% by 2050. nature.com/articles/s4156… /12
You might argue that some decoupling is better than nothing, and 3 oC better than 4 oC. That's no proof of the efficacy of absolute decoupling, but admission of its insufficiency, given economic growth, to achieve what the scientific community sees as necessary GHG reductions /13
You might think also that without growth, innovation & re investment will suffer. That’s a serious concern. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be so (think of a Green New Deal triggered by recession). And there's no proof that RE suffer more than fossil fuels during recessions/14
To clarify, our point is not to deliberately halt the economy un-directionally. It is to slow down specific, carbon-intensive activities and to invest in clean energies, clean modes of transport, etc. /15
Crucially, our hypothesis is also that a shift to lower energy productivity (EROI) sources and lower carbon intensity / labour productivity activities will likely slow down the economy. This is why we insist on policies and processes for managing without growth. /16
In the short run, and in an economy so tied, in many ways, to fossil fuels, is hard to see how the dramatic reductions in GHGs necessary will happen without a slow down of core, carbon-dependent activities, and how this in turn will not slow down GDP (see also point 7) / 17
Ecomodernists will argue that what I propose is unnecessary - we can transition to high EROI nuclear power and labour productive intensive agriculture, etc. Yet there is no IPCC scenario to chart such a path. /18
There is also a valid argument that high-income economies might be reaching on their own the end of growth (see economist.com/finance-and-ec…). If that were true, that would be, under certain conditions, good news. /19
I am not aware though of many who rush to celebrate publicly the end of growth. Partly for good reasons, since capitalist economies are geared to grow or break down. There is nothing worse than lack of growth in growth-based economies / 20
Which is ‘the case for degrowth’ enters. Our case is not strictly focused on carbon emissions. Climate change is one among many manifestations of the madness of compound growth - the expectation for the economy to double every twenty-so years ad infinitum and ad absurdum /21.
Our concern is with the increasing sacrifices – social and ecological – done in the altar of GDP growth. The liquidity and the indebtedness necessary to keep the economy growing, and the austerity and public cuts then imposed to pay the debts /22.
Growth has become un-economic. The costs of growth (in high income countries at least) exceed its benefits. But growth is still pursued at all costs, as long as the 1% that reaps the benefits manage to shift the burdens to the 99% - domestically and abroad /23
Worse, the pursuit of growth for growth’s sake is meaningless (if you haven’t, please read the great ‘How much is enough’ by @RSkidelsky). ‘Degrowth’ signals an attempt to reimagine humanity’s path ‘beyond a one-way future consisting only of growth’ (@ursulakleguin)/ END.
