Capitalism requires constant, compounding growth, making efforts at tech substitution and efficiency improvements useless. This takes out their impact defense.

It is beyond doubt that all capitalist economies so far have been growing, with the exception of relatively short periods of crises. This is no coincidence, but follows from foundational aspects of the economic system; it is a ‘generally accepted consensus figure in the financial press and elsewhere of 3 per cent as a minimum acceptable rate of growth’ (Harvey 2014: 227). This growth is endless, as profit and capital accumulation are not only desires for single capitalists but also absolute necessities for the system at large. Individual companies live by the same rule as the macro-economy – growing or dying (Sandler 1994) – while a stationary capitalism is an oxymoron (Blauwhof 2012; Harvey 1999; Marx 1976; Schumpeter 1962[1942], 1983[1934]). As to why capitalism is growing, we lean towards Marxist theory that affirms the economy is growing due to the production of surplus value, derived from productive labour.3 Through this process, as profit is realized in the market, more capital is thrown back into production of more things and commodities, as well as more factories, more infrastructure, more urbanization: more of everything (Harvey 2014).

We do not claim that economic growth is the goal of capital. It rather seems that capital accumulation and profits drive the system. Capital will therefore tend to prefer an accumulation mode with mediocre growth but high profits (neoliberalism) before a mode with high growth but decreasing returns (Keynesianism). But no growth at all is simply incompatible with capitalism.

Furthermore, its growth is compound. The economy does not grow with a constant sum over time; it grows in percentages. If the economy grows with 3% per year, the absolute growth will be larger the second year than the first. From this follows that the economy is not only growing but also growing more and more each year. If we assume a moderate annual growth rate of 2.5%, the combined global economy will be 12 times larger in one century and 140 times larger in 200 years!

... and growth increases environmental pressures

We maintain, as above, that economic growth causes ecological pressures. This claim is, however, more controversial than the first part of the hypothesis and needs to be dealt with more carefully. The fundamental premise (and promise) of ecological modernization is the ‘decoupling’ of economic growth from increased environmental pressure through ‘dematerialization’ and continuous efficiency improvements. The EKC, for example, with the shape of an U turned upside down, claims that the historically observed correlation between economic growth and increased environmental pressure is broken at an undefined point, and from that point on further economic growth is instead inversely correlated with ecological damage (for overviews, see, for example, Stern 2004 or Carson 2010). One typical example is the fading of the air pollution and heavy smog over many cities in global North, which, according to this theory, was enabled by and a consequence of economic growth.4

But despite that EKC intuitively makes some sense due to the apparent progress that has occurred in rich countries, there is unfortunately no empirical evidence for decoupling between growth and overall throughput of matter and fuels, or between growth and the carbon footprint of nations.5 As we will see, the premise and promise that the EKC would be a more or less spontaneous process under the current economic system must therefore be regarded as false. To start with, a growing economy has always been related to growing material throughput, and the economy has always been and still is highly physical, based on production of commodities, buildings, infrastructure and so on. Although places in the global North turned ‘post-industrial’ – in the sense that these economies have experienced decreased industrial production – there are no signs of a genuine ‘de-materialization’. And globally, which is the most interesting scale concerning global warming, the industrial workforce is still rising.6 Furthermore, the consumption in the global core continues to increase, along with its environmental ‘weight’. This is absolutely crucial to bear in mind, as the global division of labour, production and consumption have altered so that certain cities and countries look far less responsible for environmental change than is actually the case (cf. Holgersen 2014). For example, Sweden’s territorial emissions of greenhouse gases have been decreasing for almost 20 years, but the carbon footprint as well as overall ecological footprint, that is, including the net effects of trade and international travel, is still rising. In 2004, we would have needed 3.4 planets if everyone would consume like Swede’s; today 3.7 planets are needed (Borgström-Hansson & Wirtén 2014; Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI) 2012).

Another crucial aspect is that increased environmental efficiency is easily outnumbered by overall growth. As it seems, the economic system continues to improve efficiency and implement more environmental friendly techniques of all kinds – while still increasing ecological pressure. This is highly counter-intuitive, but was elaborated already by Stanley Jevons (2001[1865]) in The Coal Question from 1865, where he explains why the increasing efficiency of steam engines did not reduce demand for coal – but quite the opposite.

If an old steam engine were exchanged for a more efficient one, the machine would require less coal for the same production and therefore constitute an environmental improvement. But this argument is only valid as long as the aim of the activity is to produce a certain amount of something. If the aim is to generate profits, as under capitalism, another logic takes over. Then, the efficiency gain will lower costs since less coal is needed and profits will increase – profits that will be thrown into the next round of capital accumulation. This leads inevitably to the employment of more steam engines that will have to be fuelled with more coal.

The tendency in capitalism of efficiency improvements to spark larger environmental pressures, rather than less, is often referred to as Jevons paradox (cf. Foster et al. 2010). This is an important explanation for why a dematerialized, truly green capitalism has not yet evolved and perhaps never will.

Tim Jackson (2009) shows exactly how fast the carbon intensity of the economy must decrease if the 2°C target (interpreted as a maximum concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere of 450 ppm) should be reached.

Extrapolating the historical tendency, global emissions will rise about 80% until 2050. But to reach the 2°C target, Jackson argues, global emissions will have to be reduced by 85% until 2050, or 4.9% annually. If we assume, as is normally done, that neither population growth nor economic growth can be influenced, the change in carbon intensity alone will have to make sure emissions are reduced at a pace fast enough. Thus, the carbon intensity will have to decrease almost 7% annually – 10 times faster than the last years. In real figures, current carbon intensity of 768 gCO2/US $ will have to sink to 36 gCO2/US $ in 2050. In a stable economy without economic growth, the carbon intensity would ‘only’ have to fall to 115 g in 2050.

If we assume that the developing world will – or at least should have the right to – catch up to the average EU economic level in 2050, then the economic growth must be larger and the carbon intensity must decrease by 11%/year to reach 6 gCO2/$ in 2050 – 130 times less than in 2007. That is very challenging.

To use Sanne’s (2012) metaphor: we need to go down the stairs towards low or no emissions rapidly, but if we descend on a rising escalator – a metaphor for economic growth – we will have to run much quicker to reach the target in time. And we could add: as the economic growth is compound, the escalator will go faster and faster.. A similar utopian fervor in the late sixties and early seventies-emerging out of the countercultural upheaval, when young people were questioning just about everything-laid the groundwork for feminist, lesbian and gay, and environmental breakthroughs.