3. Degrowth vs. Green Growth

Question 1

Please provide a definition of Degrowth.

Answer 1

• According to Hickel (2005), degrowth is a planned reduction of energy and resource to bring economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being.
• Degrowth aims to decolonize the Global South.

Question 2

How is degrowth different from recession? (EXAM QUESTION)

Answer 2

1. Degrowth is a planned policy to reduce ecological impact and improve well-being, while a recession is not planned and reduces levels of well-being.
2. Degrowth is discriminating and seeks to scale down ecologically destructive and socially less necessary production, while recessions often destroy social important sectors.
3. Degrowth seeks to improve employment, while recessions result in mass unemployment.
4. Degrowth seeks to reduce inequality, while recessions worsen inequality.
5. Degrowth seeks to expand universal public goods and services, while recession results in cut spending on public services.
6. Degrowth is part of a plan to achieve a rapid transition to renewable energy, restore soils and biodiversity, and reverse ecological breakdown, while recessions focus on stimulating economic growth, no matter the ecological cost.

Question 3

Please provide a definition of Green Growth

Answer 3

• Green Growth according to the OECD is fostering economic growth, while ensuring natural assets keep providing the resources needed on which our well-being relies
• Green Growth is a common paradigm in mainstream sustainable development. As Hickel (2005) describes, it is an amorphous and ambiguous concept. Even the three big institutions, the World Bank, UNEP and OECD use different definitions, though they share the fact that they focus on continued economic growth, while at the same time improving the environment.
• Green growth does not challenge the idea of perpetual grow.

Question 4

How are Degrowth and Green Growth similar and how are they different?

Answer 4

• Both degrowth and green growth both recognise that there are ecological boundaries.
• Green growth holds the belief that continued economic growth is compatible with ecological sustainability, while the core of degrowth is that we should focusing on minimising material throughput, which could result in the reduction of GDP.
• Green growth is business as usual and does not challenge the status quo, while degrowth is a movement.
• Green growth is associated with technological optimism which will solve the problem in the form of BECCS. Hickel (2005) points out that from an empirical point of view, there is no proof that decoupling and BECCS will work. Degrowth includes redistribution.
• Green growth is a vision of weak sustainability, and degrowth a vision of strong-strong sustainability.

Question 5

What is the Environmental Kuznets Curve and which type of growth is it linked to?

Answer 5

The EKC proposes that as countries become more affluent, they become less polluting. It is the theory behind green growth.

Question 6

What is strong sustainability?

Answer 6

Strong sustainability does not allow substitutability between different types of capitals. It places N (natural) above the other capitals (M, S, H).

Question 7

What would the effect be on a country that adopts a degrowth policy?

Answer 7

Degrowth on a country would have a major equalizing effect: when the limit of a budget on a capital would be reached, the country would need to use existing resources to meet the needs, which would lead to a redistribution of the system.

Question 8

Define absolute decoupling and explain to what extent it is possible.

Answer 8

Absolute decoupling is when GDP increases while pollution decreases. Hickel and Kallis tried to assess whether green growth, or absolute decoupling, is possible. They found no evidence for this.

Question 9

What is Pareto-optimality?

Answer 9

• Pareto-optimality describes a situation where no further improvements to society’s well-being can be made through a reallocation of resources that makes at least one person better off without making someone else worse off. It is a strong component of neoclassical economics.

Question 10

Name three characteristics of ecological economics

Answer 10

• Ecological economics understands that the economy is embedded in the environment.
• The founder of ecological economics was Herman Daly.
• Ecological economics is different from environmental economics. The latter is an environmental branch of mainstream economics that attempts to minimize environmental impacts.
• Ecological economics acknowledges that we live on a planet with finite resources, material and energy.
• It challenges the main assumptions of neoclassical economics from a biophysical and ethical perspective. It challenges perpetual economic growth.
• It considers natural and human capital non-substitutable. It also considers laws of thermodynamic and entropy, and issues of distribution.

Question 11

What is weak sustainability? Provide a formula in your answer.

Answer 11

• According to Daly, weak sustainability is the idea that society is best off when the utility of different types of capital is maximised.
• Capital is the stock that possesses a flow of goods and services that satisfy human needs. The different capital types are:
  o Manufacture
  o Social
  o Natural
  o Human
• The formula is U = (M, S, N, H)
• As long as U (the sum of capitals) is positive, an economy is presumed sustainable. The idea here is that different capitals can substitute each other.

Question 12

Why is decoupling a myth?

Answer 12

• Hickel and Kallis tried to assess whether green growth, or absolute decoupling, is possible. They found no evidence of this.

Question 13

Why is CSS a problematic solution for sustainability?

Answer 13

• Hickel, 2020:
  o Viability of power generation with CSS has never been proven to be economically viable or scalable
  o It requires the construction of 15.000 facilities
  o The scale of biomass assumed in AR5 scenarios would require plantations covering land 2-3 times the size of India
  o Necessary storage capacity may not exist

Question 14

What is strong sustainability? Provide a formula in your answer.

Answer 14

• Strong sustainability does not allow substitution between different types of capitals.
• Furthermore, it places N (natural) above the other capitals (M, S, H).
• However, in strong sustainability, one can still replace one natural capital with another.

Question 15

Why can one consider degrowth a vision of strong-strong sustainability?

Answer 15

• Degrowth is a vision of strong-strong sustainability, in the sense that it recognises one cannot substitute within planetary boundaries.

Question 16

What is degrowth’s position towards GDP?

Answer 16

• Degrowth is NOT about reducing GDP. Hickel, 2020: it is important to accept that reducing throughput is likely to lead to a reduction in the rate of GDP growth, or even a decline in GDP itself, and we have to be prepared to manage that outcome in a safe and just way.

Question 17

Which countries need to degrow?

Answer 17

• Hickel, 2020: countries of the Global South need to use more resources and energy so as to meet human needs. Specifically, countries that exceed per capita fair-shares of PB by a significant margin (high-income countries) need to degrow.

Question 18

What will happen with (de)colonization when degrowth happens?

Answer 18

• According to Hickel (2020), degrowth in the North represents decolonization in the South, because it would release the pressures of atmospheric colonization and material extractivisim. In a degrowth scenario the pressure for this would be gone, and Southern governments would find themselves freer to pursue a more human-centred economy.
• Hickel, 2020: this would shift Southern economies away from their enforced role as exporters of cheap labour and raw materials. This was the plan of many post-colonial Southern governments in the 1960s and 1970s, until the US decided otherwise in the 1980s.

Question 19

Name three critiques on degrowth

Answer 19

• Degrowth has an element of utopia (yet utopias are useful to strive towards)
• It doesn’t allow for real transformation, we are already embedded in a certain type of system
• Improvement should happen gradually
• It isn’t based on science but just politics
• There are inherent analytical contradictions in degrowth
• The poor need us to buy stuff from them