Giorgos Kallis brought the following article to the attention of the SCORAI listserv
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519624003103
Giorgos Kallis, Jason Hickel, Daniel W O’Neill, Tim Jackson, Peter A Victor, Kate Raworth, Juliet B Schor, Julia K Steinberger, Diana Ürge-Vorsatz
Published in the Lancet Planetary Health
Abstract
There are increasing concerns that continued economic growth in high-income countries might not be environmentally sustainable, socially beneficial, or economically achievable. In this Review, we explore the rapidly advancing field of post-growth research, which has evolved in response to these concerns. The central idea of post-growth is to replace the goal of increasing GDP with the goal of improving human wellbeing within planetary boundaries. Key advances discussed in this Review include: the development of ecological macroeconomic models that test policies for managing without growth; understanding and reducing the growth dependencies that tie social welfare to increasing GDP in the current economy; and characterising the policies and provisioning systems that would allow resource use to be reduced while improving human wellbeing. Despite recent advances in post-growth research, important questions remain, such as the politics of transition, and transformations in the relationship between the Global North and the Global South.
It was followed up by a discussion on the listserv:
Richard Rosen
This new review paper by Kallis, et.al., is certainly the best summary of issues and scientific problems of its type ever written. But because it is so good, one can readily understand the huge number of complex issues and problems that probably can never be modeled as a whole. (And probably not be solved, but that is another issue.) I think that piecewise modelling of the many parts of our complex physical and economic world is the best we can hope for. My major concerns lie in two different issues. The first is, as Bill Rees has often emphasized, and as this paper comments on briefly on page 66, most models never include the likely impacts of the Energy Return on Investment issue, namely will the total need for energy to create a transition to 100% renewable energy become unmanageable and very hard or impossible to achieve. My second major concern is illustrated by their graph of GDP growth trends for high-income countries, as their GDP growth rates approach zero, as they slowly are. If at the same time income inequality trends get worse towards higher GINI indices and most income for the rich, the remaining national income for everyone but the richest 1-10% will shrink when the total “pie” shrings, impoverishing most people more than today. What then? How can human welfare goads ever be achieved?
Philip Vergragt
I regret that the authors paid less attention to post-growth consumption levels; and what role curbing overconsumption could play.
Halina Brown
In our forthcoming book “Language for Our Common Future: The Vocabulary for Sustainable Consumption Lifestyles” we posit that a major societal transition toward ecological sustainability cannot be achieved without also addressing wealth inequality within (and between) countries.
Ruben Nelson
The thing that caught my eye is the taken-for-granted assumption that somehow we can develop our Modern Techno-Industrial (MTI) form of civilization into a truly sustainable and humane form of civilization by using the ways of seeing and thinking that are the mark of our MTI cultures. In short, we can safely ignore Einstein’s quip about not using the same kinds/levels of thinking that got us into trouble to get us out because it this quip does not apply to us at the level of our form of civilization. I note that the authors of this article speak not a word of this issue. I also grant you that this is utterly normal today.
I observe that this data is consistent with two inconsistent observations: First, that MTI cultures are utterly unreflexive and blind to the ways they construe reality at deeper than levels than they are normally conscious. Second, it is also consistent with the common MTI assumption, that observations about the MTI form of civilization are themselves groundless; an illusion we can safely ignore.
My lifetime of work supports the former view. If I have not wasted my life, we who are MTI persons in MTI cultures are in more and far deeper trouble than we can even see, much less respond to.
William Rees
Rich and Halina have identified a couple of omissions in this fine paper but I think there are several more —
First, the world is already in a state of advanced overshoot — humanity is consuming even essential renewable resources faster than ecosystems can regenerate and generating waste in excess of nature’s assimilation capacity. (More simply, there are too many people consuming and polluting too much). By definition, overshoot is a terminal condition. Kallis et al. do point out that we have alreaday surpassed six of nine planetary sustainability boundaries, but there is insufficient follow-through. By some estimates, to eliminate overshoot will require a 60-80% reduction in global economic throughput. By what means can this be achieved while addressing egregious inequality and dealing with anticipated economic and population growth.
Which raises my second query. Why no serious assessment of the population issue, or better the population + rising incomes issue? Even with anticipated efficiency gains does anyone seriously believe that we can add an additional two billion people at reasonable living standards to a world already in overshoot and anticipating rising per capita consumption, without risking major increases in consumption/pollution, runaway climate change and ecosystems collapses? I don’t think any serious analysis can side-step this issue, particularly since the increases will necessarily be ‘fueled’ with fossil energy which means no detour on our path to climate chaos. (All promotional hype aside “the energy transition hasn’t even started yet” (see Schernikau 2024 for a good summary of this issue: https://unpopular-truth.com/2024/11/09/are-wind-and-solar-up-for-the-challenge/)
Third, it is easy to say WHAT must be done (e.g. “…replace the goal of increasing GDP with the goal of improving human wellbeing within planetary boundaries” but much more difficult to explain precisely HOW to achieve the ‘what’ part. The paper does mention that the “politics of transition” remains an issue but on what imaginary planet will two billion wealthy ‘haves’, led by an increasingly brutish group of billionaires and oligarchs, voluntarily engage in policies to give up their positions of wealth and power in the name of greater equity and to protect the ecosphere? Where is there a shred of evidence that there is support for the assumed needed “planned, democratic transformation” in any modern techno-industrial society? I certainly didn’t see reference to this need among President Trump’s executive orders– on the contrary he has eliminated (or will eliminate) all manner of provisions for social equity and environmental protection. (Typical of right-leaning governments everywhere?)
Finally, and encompassing the above, it seems to me that the Kallis et al. paper, while outstanding in its genre, is an example of cultural self-reference–we keep looking for solutions from among the same cultural beliefs, values, assumptions and behaviours that created the original problem. I suspect that the global eco-socio-crisis is an inevitable emergent property of the interaction of MTI society as presently conceived and the ecosphere; these systems are fundamentally incompatible. If so, there is no solution from within the mindset of MTI society.
Oskar Wood Hansen raises some important issues pertaining to consumption and population. These need to be addressed. In particular, he argues that as long as the world is plagued by egregious inequality it is inappropriate to raise the question of excessive human numbers.
I am not convinced that this is correct. Let me explain my understanding:
- The human world is in overshoot consuming and polluting more annually than the ecosphere can produce and assimilate in a year (see GFN 2025). Overfishing, tropical deforestation, soil depletion and excess carbon dioxide emissions are examples of variables in overshoot.
- Overshoot is eventually terminal – if overshoot is unattended, the human enterprise will crash.
- Global overshoot is based on total consumption/pollution. This means that even average material standards of living are excessive. In other words:
- Complete material equality (8.1 billion people living exactly the same lifestyles) would not eliminate or even reduce overshoot.
- Complete equality would require average North Americans to reduce their consumption/pollution by ~65%; average Europeans by ~45% and the world would still be in overshoot.
- Let’s assume the world is in 50% above sustainable consumption/pollution levels. This is an underestimate for such variables as fossil fuel consumption/carbon dioxide emissions and soil degradation, but serves to illustrate.
- With just 50% overshoot and complete equality, the average global citizen would still have to reduce consumption/pollution by about one third to reach sustainable levels of consumption/pollution. (North Americans would have to reduce by 70%; Europeans by 50%)
- The other option is a ~33% carefully managed, non-coercive reduction in fertility and population.
In short, dealing with inequality in isolation does not bring us to sustainable levels of consumption and pollution. We must still address overpopulation and population growth.
It is absolutely true that overshoot is the result of overconsumption mostly by the rich (as illustrated above using NA and Europe). However, consumption is a product of per capita consumption and population. Ecological footprint analysis shows that, in recent decades, population growth has been a greater contributor to overshoot at the margin than is consumption increase in all income categories. Similarly, Tamburino et al. (2023) show that “population growth is the main driver of emissions increase in all income groups except the upper-middle one”. Again, these data argue that the world cannot achieve sustainable production/consumption and pollution without attending to excess human numbers.
If the world is already in overshoot (remember, it’s a terminal condition) then I have to ask: what is to be gained by pretending that the two billion people still living in poverty can be raised to, say, European material standards without crashing the ecosphere? (And we still would have to deal with the additional two billion people expected by 2080.)
This is why we should be celebrating, not lamenting, peak population and decline in high-income countries (one North American is the equivalent to perhaps 10 citizens of the world’s poorest regions) but also why we cannot ignore population growth in high growth regions like Africa.
Klaus Hubacek
The following paper (which is not in their review) links the overshoot of the planetary boundaries explicitly to differences in consumption patterns but does not address much how to reduce it.
Keeping consumption within planetary boundaries without hurting the poor. Nature. 10.1038/s41586-024-08154-w. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08154-w
Joel Millward Hopkins
I can accept that argument that those of us looking into more radical economic and demand-side solutions to climate and ecological crisis have a tendency to avoid mentioning global population, despite it being an obviously important driver (I have in the past been guilty of this myself).
What I don’t see, however, is how reducing the human population by 33% (which I think you are suggesting?) is any more realistic that the ambitions of degrowth. Consider that the main billionaire lining up behind Trump has 11 children and is of the opinion that our problem is underpopulation, and that many of the less-rich behind Trump would like to see a blanket abortion ban in the most high-consuming country of the world.
In short, degrowth and large near-term population contraction seem to me both equally susceptible to the ‘how?’ critique — the latter probably more so.
Another point is that the world imagined by degrowth includes most of the things that serve to non-coercively reduce population — education, healthcare, women’s rights, higher incomes in the Global South.
e.g., https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1611386113
I personally would see a lower global population (even 33% lower) as a welcome side effect of a transition to a more just global economic system.
Ashley Colby
I came across this work of a retired UCSD Astrophysicist Tom Murphy whose projections seem to indicate we are due to reach peak world population well before 2050:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/06/peak-population-projections/
He also thinks this will mean peak energy/resource consumption will come before that date, due to the fact that the highest TFR regions are in the lowest consumption quartile.
Philip Vergragt
I suggest we could do some thoughtful research into what happens if population declines quickly, and what it means for footprint and degrowth. We have numerous examples in Europe and China and Japan of fast population shrinking, with sometimes devastating effects on local communities and economies; but we do not know about production-consumption aspects, which is our area of interest,
As to Africa, which has a real and immense problem of population growth, numerous foundations with deep pockets have addressed this, and there is little SCORAI can add here; unless somebody wants to propose a real and focused research project. I would rather propose to research job creation there through small-scale sustainability projects and find local partners for this; and how to counteract the lure of social media and Hollywood that give a totally distorted image of life in so-called developing countries.
Fatemeh Farrash Khiabani
Something has always been overlooked regarding the population: the quality of the population, the number of individuals who contribute to the well-being of the society.
Most studies are focused on the number of people, and even their economic situation.
Some countries, such as Iran, are overpopulated while they are in desperate need of workforce!
Population growth in these countries means “increasing the number of criminals, sex workers, disabled people, etc. not skilled workers. The root of the problem is economic hardship, but it damages the society.
When the middle-class refuse to have more than one child, and the impoverished citizens do not have enough access to birth control and education, the country will face a crisis of natural resources, economy, and safety.
José Eustáquio
I am among those who believe it is crucial to address demographic issues. It’s no coincidence that the three largest CO2 emitters — China, the United States, and India — are also the most populous countries in the world. By 2050, China is expected to surpass the historical emissions of the United States.
I struggle to understand how one can advocate for a decrease in GDP without also addressing population reduction, since this approach seems like a recipe for widespread impoverishment. On the other hand, if the population decreases more rapidly than GDP, the per capita income rises. Currently, this is evident in several countries such as Japan, Russia, China, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, and others, where population decline has coincided with growing per capita income.
A striking example is Bulgaria, where a shrinking population not only has boosted per capita income (and reduced poverty) but also reduced the ecological footprint, improved biocapacity and nearly eliminated the environmental deficit.
These are the topics I am working on my article (written in Portuguese), available in this link below:
ALVES, JED. Crescimento demoeconômico no Antropoceno e negacionismo demográfico, Liinc em Revista, RJ, v. 18, n. 1, e5942, maio 2022 https://revista.ibict.br/liinc/article/view/5942/5595
Halina Brown
I agree that we do need to talk about population, and that a rapid decrease in GDP would have very adverse consequences for people in the bottom half of the income pyramid (I am thinking of the US while writing this).
But consider the following very simple scenario: In the US, almost all of the GDP growth in the past 10-15 years has enriched those in the top few percent of income. These are people who do not need that extra wealth in order to meet their needs plus much more than that. It was mostly in the form of capital gains and rents, not the product of individual labor.
If all this extra wealth would go in the future to the people whose lives it could greatly improve, we would not need to grow the GDP to lift them up. And if we applied this type of wealth transfer to the past several decades, during which the major beneficiaries of GDP growth were those in the top income bracket, who knows, maybe we might have been able to lower the overall GDP.
This is a very simplistic picture, but it illustrates how income inequality drives the politics of GDP growth.
Vesela Veleva
As someone who was born and grew up in Bulgaria, I wanted to clarify that while it is true that the population is shrinking fast and “overall” Bulgarians are better off (there are still a lot of people living in extreme poverty), one main reason for the reduced poverty was government policies which significantly increased pensions for retirees a few years ago. With a lot of foreign companies coming to Bulgaria, the average salary also increased. Unfortunately, pollution is still very prevalent and I do not see the ‘near elimination of the environmental deficit’ (I used to work for the Ministry of Environment and still have many former colleagues there).