The viability of degrowth mechanisms as a pathway for addressing climate change has been gaining some important momentum and recognition lately. I'm wondering if this could be an unexploited opportunity worthy of further research as to its funding viability under the climate change umbrella.
The United Nations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have both recently acknowledged the risk current economic growth poses for climate change. The U.N. stated in its Sustainable Development Goals Report for 2022, “Unsustainable patterns of consumption and production are root causes of the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.” They have also recently stated that staying below 1.5 degrees is now impossible unless we see “a radical transformation of society.” Thus implying technology alone will not be enough to achieve our global environmental goals. And IPCC reports this year suggested that “degrowth policies should be considered in the fight against climate breakdown."
Additional support has come from the European Research Council (ERC) who has recently funded a six year, 10 million euro research project to study "how to escape from a growth economy and ensure social welfare and planetary sustainability." While more encouraging news comes from Finland, Iceland, Scotland, Wales and New Zealand (all members of the Wellbeing Economy Governments coalition) who announced their countries intend to abandon the idea that the percentage change in gross domestic product is a good indicator of progress, and are "instead reframing economic policy to deliver quality of life for all people in harmony with the environment."
The degrowth arena would also seem to align philosophically with several general principles of the Climate Change Fund:
- Focusing on a "holistic approach"
- a focus on "neglected solutions – blind spots and bottlenecks – underserved by other stakeholders to ensure that each Fund dollar makes as much difference as possible"
- "Early work is more likely to make a real difference and be extraordinarily impactful, so funding these neglected solutions is key"
- funding "audacious advocacy, focusing our grantmaking on organizations leveraging large amounts of money through policy advocacy and thought leadership aimed at influencing the wider conversation"
- "overlooked low hanging fruits"
- "avoid future emissions, while also creating opportunities for the world’s poor and eventually bringing energy poverty to an end"
Considering all of this, potential solutions to climate change via degrowth pathways seems like an interesting and important area worthy of further exploration and research as to it's viability as a funding opportunity.
Thanks for your post. I appreciate people taking the time to write up thoughts and proposals for new things EA-related funders should look at. However this seems importantly mistaken to me in a few ways. I want to focus on your paragraph about the IPCC.
First, style note: you really need to provide direct references for these quotes, for reasons that will become clear below.
But even taking the quote as given: I don't think that "unsustainable patterns of consumption and production" necessarily implies that economic growth poses a risk. You can have continuing economic growth while changing patterns of consumption and production. For example, we can make production processes more efficient to produce more with fewer inputs. And in fact that's exactly what we're doing. Not just in high-income countries, but globally.
Again, I don't think the implication you draw is supported by the quote. Technology can radically change society. The shift from gas to electric vehicles is a big transformation (perhaps even radical?).
I would be surprised to see that quote appear in an IPCC report. And in fact when I googled it, it seems like it comes from this Nature article on which Jason Hickel was a co-author. Hickel is a noteworthy degrowth advocate and, in my opinion, does not engage with these debates in a truth-seeking way (cf. his interactions with Max Roser). That Nature article does not cite which IPCC report supposedly claims degrowth policies should be considered, much less provide a full-text quote or even page number. I would bet that the IPCC never said anything like that, or at least that Hickel et al. are totally misrepresenting their position.
IMO degrowth is a total non-starter. It would have terrible impacts for the global poor, exacerbate social discord, and trap us in the time of perils. No thanks. I recommend people read this Noah Smith article for more.
Edit: Want to add that it's frankly not the case this kind of stuff hasn't been considered. There is at least one post on this Forum discussing similar ideas in detail, with some good discussion in the replies.
While many industrialized economies have a lower carbon intensity than a few decades ago, what matters for climate change is not carbon intensity, but total cumulative emissions. Carbon intensity is an often used metric, but it is flawed for achieving climate change goals.
This is what degrowth advocates point out: a relative decoupling between GDP and greenhouse gas emissions can still lead to an increase in total emissions if GDP grows faster than carbon intensity shrinks. Even though there has been a 34% decrease in carbon intensity (CO2e/$) between 1965 and 2015, total emissions increased by 300%. To decrease carbon emissions, we would either need to (a) have absolute and strong decoupling between emissions and GDP and/or (b) reduce society's dependence on GDP to flourish, at least temporarily. The former solution is often called 'ecomodernism', while the latter is 'degrowth' or 'post-growth'. (Background info on decoupling here.)
Obviously, degrowth approaches, too, can have their drawbacks (e.g. lower tax revenues, typically lower tractability). But I would keep away from calling degrowth a "non-starter" and use the scout mindset to explore ideas within it. Personally, I wouldn't support EA going all-in on the degrowth train, but there are probably worthwhile ideas and solutions coming from the degrowth economy that would otherwise be unlikely to get funding, as governments and companies have no incentive to advocate for degrowth. That's worthwhile to explore!
Remember that OP did not argue that EA climate change funding should all go to degrowth approaches, but merely for "further exploration and research as to it's [sic] viability as a funding opportunity". That seems like a fair idea to me.
So not even worth exploring as a possibility? Wow. Okay. Let's hope there's a new math that can model how continued exponential economic growth can be supported by a finite resource base. To believe this can continue because we'll create an inventory of technological solutions that will offset the negative environmental impacts from growth is an illusion. One that unfortunately could jeopardize our future.
What is your evidence for the creation of technological solutions being an illusion?
Most industrialized economies have massively reduced their carbon intensity over the last decades and we have seen many technological breakthroughs reducing emissions significantly.
Current exponential growth cannot continue indefinitely. However, we already have the technology to support 10 billion people at the developed country standard of living sustainably. I discuss this more in my second 80,000 Hours Podcast.
Oh boy, you can see the tecno-optimist bias of many EAs in the downvotes this post had.
I don't believe it is prudent to place all of humanities chips in green growth. I don't place my chips there.
Degrowth doesn't mean that the GDP (absolute or per capita) of the Global South has to decrease. Actually it will have to increase!
What many EAs may dislike about degrowth is that it goes against their capitalist values of infinite growth in a world with finite resources.
There is also a high degree of optimism bias and status quo bias on all the downvotes of this post.
Do the EAs who downvoted this post really learned what degrowth consists? Have they read about voluntary simplicity or about buen vivir?
You can be an effective altruist and be a degrowther. I am one.
To all EA degrowthers out there: Please don't hide the fact of not sharing the same values of perhaps the majority of EA who are firm believers in the tecno-otimist capitalist worldview point. Be honest with yourselves and others. Don't follow the sheep on the way to ecocide.
We can all be jolly about EA in 2023 but the world in 2030, 2040 and 2050 will be much different, with more extreme weather events, droughts, heat waves and an ever increasing area in which humans will have fewer and fewer possibilities of living with quality (or even being able to live in them).
Technology alone won't save us from 1.5°C if our mentalities of ever growing growth and consumption remains.
Are we on target to meet the goal of minus than 1.5°C of average global temperature increase?
Thank you OP for this post.