Ending mass human deprivation and providing good lives for the whole world's population can be accomplished while at the same time achieving ecological objectives. This is demonstrated by a new study by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) and the London School of Economics and Political Science, recently published in World Development Perspectives.
About 80% of humanity cannot access necessary goods and services and lives below the threshold for "decent living." Some narratives claim that addressing this problem will require massive economic growth on a global scale, multiplying existing output many times over, which would exacerbate climate change and ecological breakdown.
The authors of the new study dispute this claim and argue that human development does not require such a dangerous approach. Reviewing recent empirical research, they find that ending mass deprivation and provisioning decent living standards for 8.5 billion people would require only 30% of current global resource and energy use, leaving a substantial surplus for additional consumption, public luxury, scientific advancement, and other social investments.
The authors argue that, to achieve such a future, strategies for development should not pursue capitalist growth and increased aggregate production as such but should rather increase the specific forms of production that are necessary to improve capabilities and meet human needs at a high standard, while ensuring universal access to key goods and services through public provisioning and decommodification.
In the Global South, this requires using industrial policy to increase economic sovereignty, develop industrial capacity, and organize production around human well-being.
At the same time, in high-income countries, less-necessary production (of things like mansions, SUVs, private jets and fast fashion) must be scaled down to enable faster decarbonization and to help bring resource use back within planetary boundaries, as degrowth scholarship holds.
https://phys.org/news/2024-07-growth-required-good-environmental.html
About 80% of humanity cannot access necessary goods and services and lives below the threshold for "decent living." Some narratives claim that addressing this problem will require massive economic growth on a global scale, multiplying existing output many times over, which would exacerbate climate change and ecological breakdown.
The authors of the new study dispute this claim and argue that human development does not require such a dangerous approach. Reviewing recent empirical research, they find that ending mass deprivation and provisioning decent living standards for 8.5 billion people would require only 30% of current global resource and energy use, leaving a substantial surplus for additional consumption, public luxury, scientific advancement, and other social investments.
The authors argue that, to achieve such a future, strategies for development should not pursue capitalist growth and increased aggregate production as such but should rather increase the specific forms of production that are necessary to improve capabilities and meet human needs at a high standard, while ensuring universal access to key goods and services through public provisioning and decommodification.
In the Global South, this requires using industrial policy to increase economic sovereignty, develop industrial capacity, and organize production around human well-being.
At the same time, in high-income countries, less-necessary production (of things like mansions, SUVs, private jets and fast fashion) must be scaled down to enable faster decarbonization and to help bring resource use back within planetary boundaries, as degrowth scholarship holds.
https://phys.org/news/2024-07-growth-required-good-environmental.html
phys.org
How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all while reducing environmental damage?
Ending mass human deprivation and providing good lives for the whole world's population can be accomplished while at the same time achieving ecological objectives. This is demonstrated by a new study ...
The main outcomes of the paper are that:
- A 1C increase in global temperature leads to a 12% decline in world gross domestic product, which in turns means that
- The costs of rising global temperatures are so high, wealthy countries like the US have a strong incentive in unilaterally reducing carbon emissions. Environmental policies are not simply sound of mind, they're outright "economically" beneficial in the long term
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/17/economic-damage-climate-change-report
- A 1C increase in global temperature leads to a 12% decline in world gross domestic product, which in turns means that
- The costs of rising global temperatures are so high, wealthy countries like the US have a strong incentive in unilaterally reducing carbon emissions. Environmental policies are not simply sound of mind, they're outright "economically" beneficial in the long term
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/17/economic-damage-climate-change-report
the Guardian
Economic damage from climate change six times worse than thought – report
A 1C increase in global temperature leads to a 12% decline in world gross domestic product, researchers have found
Reuters - Pro Israel headline
https://www.tumblr.com/probablyasocialecologist/758708020844822528?source=share
https://www.tumblr.com/probablyasocialecologist/758708020844822528?source=share