Intro to Climate and Sustainability

Sustainability and capitalism

Misha Velthuis

m.velthuis@uva.nl

Thu 17 Oct 2024

Link

Less is more by Jason Hickel

Tuesday: ecomodernism and its critics

We are inside the car…

But this week we watch…

Ecomodernism and its critics

The case for ecomodernism

The case against ecomodernism

"Absolute decoupling is possible"

The P of IPAT

Demographic transition

4-Crude birth rate and crude death rate.png

1-Total population.png

The A and the T of IPAT

'A' needs to go up, for 'T' go down

The environmental kuznets curve

Growth is solution: we can't stop now

Absolute decoupling for CO2

The declining T

appears to Work for deforestation?

Forest transition model

From https://ourworldindata.org/deforestation (classical "Environmental Kuznets curve"-story):

Why do countries lose and then regain forests?

Many countries have followed this classic U-shaped pattern. What explains this?

There are two reasons that we cut down forests:

Forest resources: we want the resources that they provide — the wood for fuel, building materials, or paper;

Land: We want to use the land they occupy for something else, such as farmland to grow crops, pasture to raise livestock or land to build roads and cities.

Our demand for both of these initially increases as populations grow and poor people get richer. We need more fuelwood to cook, more houses to live in, and, importantly, more food to eat.

But, as countries continue to get richer, this demand slows. The rate of population growth tends to slow down. Instead of using wood for fuel, we switch to fossil fuels, or hopefully, more renewables and nuclear energy. Our crop yields improve, so we need less land for agriculture.

This demand for resources and land is not always driven by domestic markets. As I mentioned earlier, 14% of deforestation today is driven by consumers in rich countries.

The Forest Transition, therefore, tends to follow a ‘development’ pathway. As a country achieves economic growth, it moves through each of the four stages. This explains the historical trends we see in countries across the world today. Rich countries — such as the USA, France, and the United Kingdom — have had a long history of deforestation but have now passed the transition point. Most deforestation today occurs in low-to-middle-income countries.

Forest transition model

Appears to work for wild life?

Ecomodernist: optimism

But conditional optimism

Where to live:

urban areas

How to produce food

intensive agriculture

How to generate energy

high EROI, such as nuclear

Where not to live

sub-urban, rural areas

How not to produce food

low yielding farming

How not to generate energy

low EROI sources

Say no to Rousseau and Thoreau

Say not to Kumarappa

Make the anthropocene great again

Case against ecomodernism

It's not feasible.

It's not desirable.

There are alternatives.

It's not feasible: the IPAT summary

Jevons

Decreases in 'T' tend to be undone by increases in 'A'

Trade

Decreases in 'I' are not because decreases in 'T' but because some of the 'I' is taking place somewhere else.

Not enough

There might be local, specific examples where 'I' is decreasing because 'T' is declining, all while 'A' keeps increasing, but overall it's not enough.

Not feasible #1: Jevons paradox

Not feasible #2: trade

“Domestic material use in some developed OECD economies has reached a plateau, but this is because of globalization and trade. If we take into account imported goods, then the material requirements of products and services consumed in OECD countries have grown hand in hand with GDP, with no decoupling”

(Kallis et al., 2018)

Not feasible #3: it is not enough

CO2 emissions need to go down much faster …

… especially in the face of international justice

The decoupling rates achieved in high-income countries are inadequate for meeting the climate and equity commitments of the Paris Agreement and cannot legitimately be considered green. If green is to be consistent with the Paris Agreement, then high-income countries have not achieved green growth, and are very unlikely to be able to achieve it in the future. To achieve Paris-compliant emission reductions, high-income countries will need to pursue post-growth demand-reduction strategies, reorienting the economy towards sufficiency, equity, and human wellbeing, while also accelerating technological change and efficiency improvements.

Vogel, J., & Hickel, J. (2023). Is green growth happening? An empirical analysis of achieved versus Paris-compliant CO2–GDP decoupling in high-income countries. The Lancet Planetary Health, 7(9), e759-e769.

… global annual CO2 emissions are still rising

… and also, the problem is not just CO2

“At the global level, GDP and material use have increased approximately 1:1”

(Kallis, 2018, p. 297).

It's capitalism stupid

Capitalism, in its essence, requires growth.

To prevent climate catastrophe, we cannot keep growing.

The problem is capitalism.

Today: capitalism

What is it?

Why are people in favour?

Why are people against?

What is captitalism?

Capitalism vs feudalism

Workers are separated from means of production

(new in capitalism)

Workers are paid less than what they produce (surplus for capitalist)

(same as under feudalism)

Workers are paid wages that they spend on the open market

(new in capitalism)

Capitalists need to reinvest surplus to expand/maintain market share (and continue accumulation)

(new in capitalism)

Why are people in favour of capitalism?

Capitalism: freedom for workers and consumers

Capitalism: elites fight over market share

Capitalism: systemic imperative to increase productivity

Historical materialism

Ecomodernists: the state can change the landscape

If we only internalize the externalities…

Why are people against capitalism?

Because we are rolling towards the abyss

and we won't be able to stop

It's not just minimizing cost

it's also maximizing exploitation

Violent pursuit of cheap labour and cheap resources

Mother of all collective action problems

Individual pursuit:

Capitalist…

… tries to maintain or expand market share, to draw in as much surplus as possible.
… cannot afford to fall behind (otherwise you would lose everything)

Worker …

… tries to get most value out of wage by buying as much good quality products as possible.
… does not want to "fall behind"

Collective outcome:

After some point, extra production/consumption does not add happiness

While the environment is deteriorating

Why these pictures?

Picture 1:

We are stuck in a rat race. A hamster wheel. The system is forcing everyone to keep running. Those who stop running disappear.

Picture 2:

In a way, this is like an arms' race (another classical example of a collective action problem). When your enemy buys more powerful weapons, you need to also buy more powerful weapons, and in the end you are both less safe than before (you end up in the collectively suboptimal Nash equilibrium).

The outcome:

Perpetual growth,
interspersed with crises

Collective action problem among capitalists

People with power

have the power

to prevent people

from taking away their power

Where will the necessary

collective action emerge?

Right wing backlash in the face of credible threats of

collective action?

After the reading week

Decolonization

Open session?

The monsters underneath capitalism:

Colonialism,

extractivism

and the modern divide.

Dangers of anti-capitalism

Degrowth

Proposals?

Sources of hope?