Averting climate breakdown and securing equitable wellbeing: Post-growth policies and provisioning systems

At the heart of the twin challenges of averting climate breakdown and securing equitable wellbeing, there is a dilemma. In current economies, high levels of energy use and the pursuit of economic growth undermine adequate climate mitigation, but low levels of energy use and the absence of economic growth undermine human wellbeing.

This thesis sets out to dissect this dilemma, and chart ways to overcome it. Using empirical time series analysis, cross-country statistical analysis, and qualitative system dynamics, my research generates three main insights.

First, no high-income country has achieved or is likely to achieve sufficiently fast decoupling to reconcile economic growth with the Paris climate targets and minimum equity principles.

Second, achieving wellbeing requires more energy use when public services are privatised or eroded, when income inequality is high, when democracy is weak, and when economies grow beyond moderate levels of affluence.

Third, livelihoods are dependent on economic growth when production and sales are predominantly oriented towards profit, welfare provision is inadequate, and labour protection is weak.

My analysis thus shows that society’s ability to avert climate breakdown and secure equitable wellbeing depends on key political-economic aspects of provisioning systems. The current incompatibility between adequate climate mitigation and equitable wellbeing is a result of core features of the dominant political-economic regime, in particular the pursuit of economic growth, profit maximisation, income inequality, neoliberal welfare and labour policy, and the privatisation of public services.

Averting climate breakdown and securing equitable wellbeing thus requires a fundamental transformation of provisioning systems and the overarching political-economic regime to a post-growth regime oriented towards sufficiency, ecological sustainability, and equitable wellbeing. Key elements of such a transformation include shifting to not-for-profit provisioning, strengthening economic democracy, expanding public services, providing a job guarantee and a minimum income guarantee, and reducing worktime and income inequality.