Can we live within environmental limits and still reduce poverty? Degrowth or decoupling?

Abstract

Economic growth has resulted in a twin crisis of climate change and environmental breakdown, while millions still live in poverty, a third crisis. Is it possible to resolve all three, or are there trade-offs? Can the crises be tackled by environmental and social policies within the logic of the existing economic system, or is a new paradigm required that rejects GDP growth as an objective?This debate brings together two discussants in three rounds of conversation, to propose, test, and challenge each other's ideas.

Living Within Biophysical Limits: green growth versus degrowth

“…It focuses on cost-effective ways of attenuating environmental pressures to effect a transition towards new patterns of growth that will avoid crossing critical local, regional and global environmental thresholds … It is about fostering economic growth and development while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies. (OECD, 2011, pp.10, 18) Degrowth As with 'green growth', the concept of 'degrowth' comprises multiple strands and definitions (see Hagens, 2020;Hickel and Kallis, 2020;Hickel and Hallegatte, 2021;IPCC, 2022;Ward et al, 2016). Indeed, those associated with the degrowth camp differ markedly in their philosophical, ideological and policy preferences.…”

“…The concept of decoupling is pivotal to the debate between the advocates of green growth and degrowth (see Jackson, 2009;Hickel and Hallegatte, 2021;UNEP, 2011a;Ward et al, 2016). Put simply, decoupling 'is reducing the amount of resources such as water or fossil fuels used to produce economic growth and delinking economic development from environmental deterioration' (UNEP, 2011a, p.xi).…”

“…While the advocates of green growth and degrowth disagree about many things, there are also important areas of agreement (see, for instance, Hickel and Hallegatte, 2021;Hickel and Kallis, 2020;van den Bergh, 2017). These can be summarised as follows.…”

“…Natural resource use globally reached an estimated 100 billion metric tons annually in 2020. This is claimed to be about double the maximum sustainable boundary level (Bringezu, 2015;Bringezu et al, 2017;Hoekstra and Wiedmann, 2014;Hickel and Kallis, 2020;Hickel and Hallegatte, 2021). If so, a massive reduction in aggregate resource use will be necessary during the 21st century, as well as large shifts in consumption patterns to reflect the relative scarcity of different resources.…”

What contribution of agroecology to job creation in sub-Saharan Africa? The case of horticulture in the Niayes, Senegal

“…Besides the low socioeconomic probability of this replication, climate change exerts further pressure on food systems already pushed to their limits (Steiner et al 2020). SSA's smallholder farms' ability to upscale to highly productive and resource-consuming conventional systems becomes even more limited, as rich nations' model relying on excessive resources and energy uses is not replicable given the earth's physical boundaries (Hickel and Kallis 2020;Hickel and Hallegatte 2022). This assessment led Steiner et al (2020) to advocate for a rerouting of farming and rural livelihoods involving a "reinvigorated rural economy […] to spur agriculture to shift from being a direct (often subsistence) employer to a driver of rural development and growth".…”