Economic growth is the principal driver of global CO2 emissions, as it tends to increase energy demand, which in turn makes decarbonisation of the overall energy system more difficult to achieve. The relationship between growth and emissions was evident in the slowing down of global emissions from 2010 to 2020, which happened despite weak mitigation efforts, and was largely due to much slower growth in the world economy than expected.
Despite the recent trend of lower economic growth and its effect on global CO2 emissions, the scenarios of climate mitigation considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) continue to omit futures of lower economic growth.
Our new study, published in One Earth, shows that by abandoning the pursuit of high economic growth, the world could substantially narrow the gap between the current trajectory of dangerously high emissions and the pathways that can keep us within a safe climate space. By contrast, the continued pursuit of high economic growth may leave no viable pathways for humanity to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
In our article, we outline contrasting mitigation pathways, which either assume a return to the pathway of high global economic growth and weak climate action (a “High Growth and Current Policies” scenario) or the continuation of the global trend of low economic growth from 2010 to 2020 alongside raising climate ambitions (a “Low Growth & High Ambition” scenario).
By comparing scenarios of low and high growth, we show that lower economic growth alone can lead to CO2 emissions reductions of up to 13% by 2030. Moreover, lower growth would make it possible to achieve the necessary emissions reductions with a smaller build-up of low-carbon energy and less ambitious efficiency improvements, compared to the rates assumed in existing mitigation scenarios.
Still, we highlight that even in the low growth scenarios, mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5 °C require an acceleration of efforts to decarbonise and reduce energy consumption. The level of ambition required is equivalent to the whole world immediately adopting the mitigation targets established in the European Green Deal.
Moving from scenarios of low growth towards post-growth
While our scenarios show that lower rates of economic growth can make climate mitigation easier in important respects, we are also aware that lower growth may imply a continuation of the involuntary stagnation period from 2007 to 2022, with rising inequalities. In this respect it is important to distinguish between “low growth” and “post-growth”. Post-growth refers to a process where governments move beyond the pursuit of increasing GDP, focusing instead on social and ecological goals, and actively prepare to manage lower growth rates by introducing policies designed to counteract potential negative outcomes.
The objective of post-growth is to prioritise production of what is important for human wellbeing and environmental sustainability, while reducing less-necessary forms of production and consumption. Key features of a post-growth scenario are reduction of inequalities, universal access to necessary goods and services, and increased public investment for a low-carbon energy transition.
Finally, we should note some limitations of our study. The scenarios we present provide only a simple global analysis of the climate implications of lower economic growth and therefore do not adequately represent post-growth. In our future work on post-growth scenarios, we aim to provide more clarity on how different economic sectors and activities contribute to emissions and social wellbeing, in order to identify which sectors and activities should be reduced or expanded to achieve aspirational social and ecological goals.
The full article can be cited as:
Slameršak, A., Kallis, G., O’Neill, D.W. and Hickel, J., 2024. Post-growth: A viable path to limiting global warming to 1.5°C. One Earth, 7(1), 44-58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2023.11.004