Earth Day was on 22 April and while searching for a bit of background and resources for this day, I came across the Earth Overshoot Day 2021 contest where you can guess, on what date the impacts of human activities will have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet’s biosphere this year. Next to the realization that some countries like e.g. Austria did already have their national Earth Overshoot Day (it was 7 April 2021), this got me thinking about the need for speed when it comes to reducing humanity’s footprint on the Earth’s biosphere and ecosystems.
Case in point is the climate catastrophe we are facing. Given the current pledges by governments worldwide for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and, most notably, decarbonize the global economy to net zero, we would still hit a temperature increase somewhere close to 2.5C compared to the pre-industrial average. Should we fail in delivering those pledges, a +3C world is very likely. In order to stay within the 2C guardrail, which is now international law (thanks to the Paris Agreement), net zero emissions need to be reached somewhere in the second half this century – however, given that Paris explicitly states that holding »the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels«, we need to arrive at net zero somewhere around mid-century. Or in other words: in 29 years from now the latest. Just to remind you: 2050 is as far away from us today than 1992. We are talking about a rather narrow timeframe.
The inconvenient truth of that necessary reduction path is, that we must make some serious adjustments to our policies – and our political economic framework in which we operate. Given how slow we currently decarbonize, expressed in the fall of carbon intensity, and how slow e.g. the shift towards a global renewable energy system progresses, business as usual is clearly not an option. This includes ideas of a Green Deal and a greener form of economic growth.
Already back in 2014, Samuel Alexander and the Simplicity Institute have argued that carbon budget analysis, i.e. how much carbon can be released into the Earth’s atmosphere in order to stay within the 2C guardrail, and given current trajectories of economic development, OECD countries along with Eastern Europe and Russia would need to peak immediately and start with decarbonization of about 8 to 10% per year. The rest of the world could be allowed to still increase their CO2 emissions until 2025 and then start the descend towards net zero with a 7% reduction per year. Alexander concedes, in line with most mainstream economists, that emissions reductions above 3 to 4% per year are incompatible with sustained economic growth, thus demanding a »powerdown« or degrowth strategy for the world’s richest countries. The key elements of such a powerdown strategy would be:
- Using macroeconomic indicators beyond growth for policy-making.
- Carbon pricing, divestment and phasing out of environmentally harmful government subsidies.
- Publicly funded global energy transition towards renewables and North-South technoloy transfers.
- Impact Caps in order to prevent rebound effects/Jevons’ paradox (probably through a permanently increasing carbon tax).
- Shifting public and private investments towards a »low-carbon infrastructure« (especially when it comes to mobility, urban planning, industrial relations/work regimes).
- Sufficiency policies to address necessary changing in consumer culture towards »voluntary simplicity«.
Along similar lines, Jason Hickel in 2019 suggested urgent reforms to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Especially SDG 8 »Decent Work and Economic Growth« is incompatible with SDG 6, 12, 13, and 14. SDG 8 requires sustained per capita growth of 7% per year in the least developed countries (LDC) and a doubling of employment in the industrial sector in those countries until 2030. Globally, this implies an expansion of about 3% per year, leading to a 55% larger world economy than we have compared to 2015. Given our climate targets from Paris, this would have implied a peak of global CO2 emissions in 2015 and, subsequently, a reduction of at least 7% per year to keep in line with the 2C guardrail, much less the 1.5C guardrail. Hickel suggests the following reforms to the UN SDGs and some additional policy measures:
- Reformulation of SDG 8.1 (GDP growth) so that economic growth, as a target, only applies to the least developed countries – but not for anyone else. Growth in the LDCs should be focused on alleviating poverty but not for industrial transformation, otherwise it will counter any decarbonization efforts.
- Introducing a strict global cap for global material footprint in SDG 12.2 (Sustainable Consumption and Production) of around 50bn tones.
- Global Minimum Wage System of about 50% of the respective national median income.
- Phasing out of agricultural subsidies in the EU and USA for a faire global trade regime.
- Debt forgiveness for LDCs.
- Democratization of international institutions like IMF and Worldbank.
Of course, neither suggestions, the powerdown strategy of Alexander nor the SDG reforms of Hickel, have been taken up by mainstream policy makers. It is also needless to say, that time is running out. Global emissions need to peak, and they need to peak now. Any forward looking, responsible climate policy has to take into account the following inconvenient truths:
- Without a dramatic revision of global (and national) economic growth targets the 1.5C guardrail cannot be achieved – and even the 2C guardrail will become ever harder to reach.
- Especially the global North, the OECD countries, but also Russia and China, have to say farewell to economic growth and focus on improving quality of life for their citizens.
- While the global South can continue to grow for a short while, this economic growth needs to be exclusively focused on improving the situation of the world’s poorest, especially through investments in healthcare and education.
- Hard regulatory policies like carbon pricing must be accompanied by hard regulatory laws like strict targets/caps for the carbon budget and material footprint.
- Questions about lifestyles and consumer culture can no longer be left out of the global policy debates. The American way of life, but also the European way of life, the »imperial lifestyle« is unsustainable and must change.
- Alternatives to our current political economic framework like e.g. degrowth, the steady state economy, the solidarity economy and so forth have to be taken into account without ideological reservations.
We cannot go on if we want something to go on in the future. We only have this one Earth, but we cannot sustain it if our ways have nothing of this Earth within us. Earth must come first because the Earth is us.
Some of these ideas have been presented at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QycnggeH-wQ (German).