System Change - [ECO]NOMICS Part 4
Channel: New Economic Thinking
Date: 18/05/2022

Encouraged by economists, current mainstream policy on climate change has been too focused on "green growth", and reliant on market-based solutions, which have proven inadequate to the challenge.  Professor Juliet Shor emphasizes it is time to reject business as usual and build a new economy.  

In this fourth and last part of [ECO]NOMICS, Prof. Schor explores the structural changes necessary to live within planetary boundaries.

For starters, we need to improve our understanding of human well-being.  Public policy has focused on a single flawed number - GDP - ignoring that higher quality of life can be achieved on other dimensions, like fewer working hours. While growth is essential for poor countries to achieve decent standards of living, after a certain threshold, the incremental benefits of increasing GDP are fewer and unequally distributed. Prof. Schor shows it is both economically and technically feasible to achieve high levels of well-being without fossil fuels. 

Climate policy should jettison the growth imperative, but it cannot overlook the equality imperative. We are in a climate crisis because of inequalities of power and resources, both within countries and globally.  Prof. Schor outlines what needs to be done to address climate destabilization successfully and efficiently: mandate shifts to clean renewable energy, democratic control of investment flows, and a just transition with equity at its core. The State needs to be at the center of this response. But Prof. Schor warns that concentrations of wealth often translate into control of the State and policy inaction, so we need to also address the  distribution of power and democratization. In light of recent tendencies, a large and vigorous social movement may be necessary to spur our governments to act.

Learn more at https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/videos/eco-nomics

Credits: Juliet Schor, Matthew Kulvicki, Nick Alpha, Gonçalo Fonseca, Kurt Semm