VAKGROEP POLITIEKE WETENSCHAPPEN

ONDERZOEKSGROEP CENTRUM VOOR DUURZAME ONTWIKKELING

PUTTING

“GREEN GROWTH VERSUS

DEGROWTH”
INTO CONTEXT
PhD student Irma Emmery
OVERVIEW

1. Backdrop: Planetary boundaries

2. It’s not only ecological limits, it’s also politics
3. Two different stories about the future economy
A. GDP Growth & Decoupling 101
B. (Ecomodernist) green growth
C. Degrowth
1. BACKDROP: PLANETARY BOUNDARIES
WELCOME TO THE ANTHROPOCENE

- After stable Holocene

- No longer geographic
processes that determine
ecosystem functioning =>
human impact

- 1950: Great Acceleration

Source: International
Geosphere-Biosphere
Programme, 2015
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PLANETARY BOUNDARIES
• Rockström et al. (2009, in Nature)
identified and quantified planetary
boundaries => define “a safe operating
space for humanity” in the anthropocene.

• Humans can depend on ecosystems and

natural resources, as long as biophysical
boundaries are not overshot.

• Contested notion as reversability is

unclear / tipping points in earth system.
BIODIVERSITY LOSS
• Trends in populations of
mammals, birds, fish,
amphibians, reptiles between
1970 en 2016

• On global scale: average

decline of 68%, but strong
regional variability

• Dramatic decline in
freshwater populations: -84%

Source: LPI 2020, WWF

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CLIMATE CHANGE: EVOLUTION CO2 EMISSIONS

Source: Global
Carbon Budget (2018)
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2. IT’S NOT ONLY ECOLOGICAL LIMITS, IT’S

ALSO POLITICS

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PROJECTED
CARBON
INEQUALITY

Source: The
Institute for
European
Envrionment
Policy & Oxfam
2023

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SO WHO’S RESPONSIBLE FOR EXCESS EMISSIONS?
The G8 countries (the USA, EU-28,
Russia, Japan, and Canada) are
together responsible for 85% of the
excess emissions.

Responsibility is based on current

consumption-based emissions AND
historical emissions (imperialism,
colonialism).

Source: Hickel, 2020

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3. TWO DIFFERENT STORIES ABOUT THE

FUTURE ECONOMY

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A. GDP GROWTH & DECOUPLING 101

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RESPONSE TO GDP GROWTH AS COMMON DENOMINATOR

- GDP: indicator measuring growth of value of products and services produced

in an economy
- Limited => does not measure wellbeing, ecosystem or human health, etc.
- Response to context of Great Depression (1930s, Kuznets)
1953: UN consensus on indicator
 After Soviet Union: global adoption
- Core of economic policy + common sense
- Growth = positive! More production, consumption, wealth
- Growth = increase of energy use and resource use (input)
= increase of waste and emissions (output)

Environmental pressures: no longer possible or defendable!

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…WHAT IF WE DECREASE ENVIRONMENTAL PRESSURES, BUT STILL
GROW?

1990s: Decoupling born from an empirical

hypothesis (Grossman and Krueger 1991,
1995, Panayotou, 1993, Shafik &
Bandyopadhyay, 1992)

2000s: Decoupling became a policy goal

(OECD, EC, UNEP, WB)

2015: Decoupling becomes common sense

(SDG goal n° 8, political targets, growth-duty)
Environmental pressure is
complex!
No clear definition

&

How are you measuring

decoupling?

Source: EEB Decoupling debunked, 2019

VALIDITY? CURRENT EVIDENCE?

“In summary, decoupling is certainly an essential part of

transforming Europe's economic system to a genuinely
sustainable model. Yet it is highly uncertain whether it will be
possible for Europe to achieve decoupling at the level required
to reconcile continued economic growth with the needed
reductions in environmental pressures.”

Source: European Environmental Agency (EEA), 2021

B. (ECOMODERNIST) GREEN GROWTH

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 ‘Traditional’ green growth
 Smart / sustainable / green / inclusive growth
 Focuses on markets, prices, companies, technology
 Limits government intervention to investment
 Does not focus on political processes and social
justice
 Aspires to “absolute decoupling” of growth and
environmental impact

Source: Timothée Parrique:

Decoupling Debunked, Part 2:
Is decoupling happening? -
YouTube
Ecomodernist (!) green growth

- Additional focus on decoupling of society-nature

- A ‘simpler life’ < Abundant cheap energy + green
consumption
 Through investments in large-scale technologies
- ‘Good Anthropocene’: technology in control of natural
world
 Accelerated innovation and intensification (high-
density& efficient cities, agriculture, etc.).
 Rewilding 50-75% of the planet by transforming
agriculture
- International development aid (based on clean
technology transfers) to boost Global South economies
- States / EU as important actors for investment and
innovation
- Top-down approach
C. DEGROWTH

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Source: Timothée Parrique (permission given)

Source: Timothée Parrique (permission to use visual)

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- 1970s: Countercultural roots + reports on ecological limits
- Early 2000s: Degrowth as critique of green growth:
 “No infinite growth on a finite planet” (ecological economics)
 Critique of social acceleration, overconsumption, colonialism, corrupt power
structures
- Seen as social movement: allies with feminism, antiracism, decolonialism, etc.
- Focus on just and equitable transition and redistribution:
 International and intranational justice and redistribution (esp. Global South)
- Efficient, low-carbon, democratically accessible technologies
- Decoupling: not main strategy
- Cultures of sufficiency and dematerialisation
- Focus on interconnection with the living world
- Focused on wellbeing (independent of growth)
 Needs-based approach and social resilience
- Focus on democratic and participatory political processes
- Bottom-up / decentralisation / grassroots approach
Important to understand

These two stories do not present

a simple yes or no, they do no LET’S DEBATE!
consist of a loose set of ideas.
Their arguments are part of a
coherent way of understanding
the world, a set of
complementary ideas and
values.

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 VAKGROEP POLITIEKE WETENSCHAPPEN
ONDERZOEKSGROEP CENTRUM VOOR DUURZAME ONTWIKKELING

THANK YOU
FOR YOUR

ATTENTION
PhD student Irma Emmery
Irma.Emmery@UGent.be