Schedule 9th International Degrowth Conference

It has now become clear: We are living in a new era. Security cannot be taken for granted, and it does not come for free, but its multi-dimensionality and sheer magnitude is not yet understood. A fundamental industrial change towards a resource-constrained, involuntarily post-growth economy is under way. Renewable energy plants require a new raw material base - the post-fossil age will be a metal age characterised by resource shortages, not just scarcities (IEA 2022), while at the same time, the struggle for land is intensifying. Ending the trends will require more time than we have to avert environmental crises due to earth system inertia, and empirically, GHG emissions are still increasing and deforestation is ongoing (FDAP 2022).
According to our analysis, existing trends and future necessities have combined to catapult is, unprepared, into the post growth eras. The long-term trend is decreasing growth rates (secular stagnation). The necessities are the massive investments, public and private, and climate damage repair and adaptation, ecosystem restoration and environmental clean-up, as well as in social security, health and care systems. The necessities imply that an increasing share of the overall annual investment will have to go to economically unproductive purposes, while the total volume of investment is at most stagnant. Together this is leading to a lower production potential each year, and hence degrowth (by disaster).
The implications are severe, and the solutions yet unknown. We are confronted with
• The end of steady economic growth
• The shrinking of median incomes
• Steadily increasing temperature for at least the next 30 years, ongoing biodiversity loss
• Structural change replacing fossil fuel dependency by metal dependency
• The end of global free trade, replaced by spheres of influence and geopolitics
• The necessity to establish future-proof social security, health and care systems
• Redistribution of income and in particular, wealth
So far, no clear policy strategies have been emerging. What is obvious, however, is to follow the imperative of “do no harm” and end all activities which have been catapulting us over the thresholds into the new era.

Info

Day: 2023-08-30
Start time: 12:30
Duration: 00:15
Room: ZV-8-3
Type: Paper Presentation
Theme: Degrowth in the year 2023

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