Degrowth is impossible – continued reliance on fossil fuels and lack of globalization.

For green growth advocates, degrowth is not only impossible, it is also unnecessary, since economic growth and technological progress can enable us both to have more stuff and to reduce resource use and carbon emissions. A few countries, mostly in Europe, have exhibited declining carbon emis- sions during the last two decades despite sustained growth (Aden 2016). Technological studies also project feasible scenarios for a world powered by renewable (Jakobson et al. 2010) or nuclear power. Expenditure on a large- scale energy transition may stimulate growth and create new jobs, so green growth advocates claim.

I engaged with these arguments in chapter 4 but let me recap the main responses to these ideas

DEGROWTH

1. Once trade effects have been taken into account, fewer countries have experienced an absolute decoupling of emissions than is typically reported. In terms of resources, there are almost no cases of absolute decoupling (Wiedman et al. 2014).

2. What is possible in one country is not necessarily generalizable to all others. Switzerland can be a bank economy and Luxembourg a service economy, but the whole world cannot consist of Switzerlands and Luxembourgs.

3. Declining carbon emissions are often the result of one-off changes, such as the substitution of coal with natural gas. It is harder to sustain these rates of reduction in emissions once the substitution has been completed, especially if energy use grows.

4. Even though the substitution of fossil fuels by cleaner forms of energy cannot (and should not) be ruled out, these sources of energy also have an impact. With perpetual economic growth and growth in energy use, these impacts will grow too.

5. To power a major energy transition, a lot of fossil fuel may have to be burnt. This would risk depleting the remaining carbon budget.

6. The energy return on investment (EROI) of alternative renewable or nuclear power is much lower than that of fossil fuels, so these sources of energy may not be capable of maintaining current growth rates.

7. Investing in an energy transition will divert resources from other parts of the economy and may lead to lower labour productivity and growth than would otherwise be the case.