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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.

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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

Authors
  1. Jason Hickel
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  2. Paul Brockway
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  3. Giorgos Kallis
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  4. Lorenz Keyßer
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  6. Aljoša Slameršak
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  8. Diana Ürge-Vorsatz
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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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