IFF hosted a fascinating seminar last week in Edinburgh with Professor Tim Jackson, Economics Commissioner on the UK Sustainable Development Commission and author of the controversial book ‘Prosperity without Growth: economics for a finite planet’ (just published by Earthscan).
Jackson suggests that society is faced with a profound dilemma. To resist growth is to risk economic and social collapse. To pursue it relentlessly is to endanger the ecosystems on which we depend for long-term survival.
He acknowledged that government found the notion of prosperity without growth difficult when the report was first launched (not great timing, in the midst of the April 2009 London G20 summit to kickstart global economic growth). But the reception elsewhere, across the board, has been enthusiastic and engaged. The report and Jackson’s subsequent book is ‘a call to consider the future’ and to develop ‘a new coherent vision of social progress’.
Jackson’s is a sobering message - one that we have known for some time, but which is now pressing on us with ever more urgency. We are becoming both more aware of the ‘planetary boundaries‘ we have to operate within, and of the inevitability that we will breach them if we continue with our current paradigm of growth. Material development in poorer nations (and poorer parts of richer nations) is still vital, where a small increase in income has a large impact on wellbeing. But we have no room for increasing ’superfluous material consumption’ in the advanced economies.
So what should we do? Just stopping growth - ‘degrowth’ or managed contraction of the economy - is inherently destabilising, at least under current conditions. In a consumer economy like our own it threatens collapse. And ‘when economies collapse bad things happen’ (unless you already have strong resilience, capacity for social self-organisation etc like Cuba).
Plan A is ‘de-materialisation’ of the economy, a shift to low carbon. That is attractive in theory, but in practice emissions have risen inexorably since the early 1990s when we first started to try to reduce them.
Perhaps we are just not trying hard enough. But Jackson reminded us just how hard we are going to have to try. We need to reduce grams of carbon per $ of production from 770 today to 6 in 2050. And by 2100 we have to go negative - ie our economy must extract carbon from the atmosphere rather than release it. As Jackson said: ‘we have no idea what that kind of economy looks like, and we have no idea how to reverse the existing system dynamics in order to get there’.
I can’t help noting here that there are those in IFF who have been working for some time on what that economy looks like, based on the fundamental elements of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen… but the CHON scenario is another story for another post.
Jackson encouraged us not to get too pessimistic just yet. There is hope.
Firstly, hope that we might rediscover a deeper view of humanity beyond homo economicus, beyond jobs and shopping, and a more rounded view of what counts as prosperity.
Secondly, we may yet discover new economic ‘engines’ for a sustainable economy. A new low carbon/ green tech economy for example - which is the path the Scottish Government is keen to pursue, notably with its commitment to renewable energy. Or a shift from products and stuff to service provision - health, education, mobility etc. Each requires concomitant shifts in other structures - new financial and investment instruments, for example, for the green tech economy. And a reversal of the system dynamics that drive people out of economic processes in the name of efficiency if we are to move in the service direction.
The discussion of this challenging thesis raised a number of interesting points:
- the green tech revolution requires investment. There was a period before the crash when money was available from individual believers and visionaries - but that money is much reduced. The financial institutions have money and want to invest it, but a typical return on investment period of 4 years for eg renewables is still too long for them to contemplate;
- price signals matter in an economy. So pricing carbon has its attractions. But it is not clear yet (to put it at its mildest) whether the cap and trade market mechanism for carbon is really addressing or altering the fundamentals of the economy rather than just introducing a nice speculative secondary market;
- there may be an interesting play within the advanced economies that invests a small sum in reducing poverty and increasing wellbeing in poorer communities (where economic growth is still needed and still ‘good’) with a concomitant saving on public services that can be invested in the new economic engines recommended in Prosperity without Growth;
- the business community is scarcely engaged in this discussion at all - though it must become so. It talks about socially responsible growth - but has no language yet for talking about an economy without growth. This is a huge shift in thinking, barely begun. Time for Scotland to take a lead?
- the challenge for government is also immense. Their instrument is legislation - but we all know that is an amazon forest of vested interests. And there is no political advantage to be gained in taking the long view.
On that note - the need to restructure democracy - we decided to adjourn! Clearly this is a discussion that is just beginning and can only go so far in the space of a lunchtime. But it is a discussion we will hear with ever greater clamour in the months and years ahead - and one with which IFF will remain closely, and hopefully, engaged.
Tags: climate change, economic regeneration, governance, growth, resilience, sustainability