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Urgent need for post-growth climate mitigation scenarios

Nature Energy volume 6, pages 766–768 (2021)Cite this article

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Established climate mitigation scenarios assume continued economic growth in all countries, and reconcile this with the Paris targets by betting on speculative technological change. Post-growth approaches may make it easier to achieve rapid mitigation while improving social outcomes, and should be explored by climate modellers.

Existing scenarios start with the assumption that all nations should continue to pursue economic growth for the rest of the century, regardless of how rich they have already become. Growth is an unquestioned norm1. This creates a problem because growth is projected to drive a significant increase in energy demand over the coming decades, making it more challenging to decarbonize the economy2. To reconcile growth with the Paris Agreement goals of keeping global warming below 1.5 °C or 2 °C, existing scenarios gamble on dramatic technological change, particularly negative emissions technologies and productivity improvements big enough to drive absolute decoupling of gross domestic product (GDP) from energy use.

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Acknowledgements

G.K. and A.S. acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, through the ‘Maria de Maeztu’ programme for Units of Excellence (CEX2019-000940-M). P.B.’s time was funded by the UK Research and Innovation Council, supported under EPSRC Fellowship award EP/R024254/1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics, London, UK

    Jason Hickel

  2. ICTA, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Jason Hickel & Aljoša Slameršak

  3. School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Paul Brockway

  4. ICREA and ICTA, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Giorgos Kallis

  5. Institute for Environmental Decisions, D-USYS, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Lorenz Keyßer

  6. ISA, School of Physics, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Manfred Lenzen

  7. Institute of Geography and Sustainability, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Julia Steinberger

  8. Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

    Diana Ürge-Vorsatz

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  1. Jason Hickel
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Correspondence to Jason Hickel.

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Hickel, J., Brockway, P., Kallis, G. et al. Urgent need for post-growth climate mitigation scenarios. Nat Energy 6, 766–768 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-021-00884-9

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