Schedule 9th International Degrowth Conference

In descriptions of a socio-ecologically sustainable future, ensuring a decent quality of life whilst remaining within planetary boundaries are often dual central aims. However, at present no country is achieving this, given the positive correlation between nations meeting important indicators of social thresholds and the number of planetary boundaries transgressed (O’Neill et al., 2018; Fanning et al., 2021). In response to this problem, the need to reduce socio-economic inequality is increasingly discussed within climate mitigation proposals, spanning a broad range of eco-social discourses, including Green Growth, Green New Deal and Degrowth proposals. Despite this broad support for inequality reduction, the relationship between inequality and planetary boundaries is complex and understudied, particularly with regards to the impact inequality reduction may have within these divergent eco-social policy narratives. Through a structured review of academic literature that discusses inequality reduction alongside these narratives, this paper unpicks the prevalence of, motivations for and mechanisms through which socio-economic inequality reduction is to be achieved. Whilst this review finds that inequality reduction features widely across all narratives, the purposes for and mechanisms through which inequality reduction is to be achieved are often distinct. It is argued that these are likely to incur significant differences in the ecological impact of ensuring decent living standards under each eco-social narrative. Despite this, little investigation is given to these impacts within any of the narratives, indicating the need for further empirical investigation of this important tension in eco-social research.

Info

Day: 2023-08-30
Start time: 12:30
Duration: 00:15
Room: ZV-8-4
Type: Paper Presentation
Theme: Degrowth as a political project?

Links:

• iCalendar