As painful as it is, degrowth would be, we are told, the obligatory step towards carbon neutrality. But isn’t there an alternative way to ensure the ecological transition? Better: wouldn’t it be the decline itself that would make this transition impossible?
Faced with the ecological challenge, two schools. One aims to drastically reduce our consumption and therefore reduce, stabilize or even reverse economic growth. Its name is “sobriety”, a euphemism for “degrowth”. Jean-Marc Jancovici is one of its leading figures. The other, less well known, aims to fundamentally transform the economic system and reconfigure a large number of our activities so that any increase in consumption does not increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Its name is “decoupling”. Decoupling is said to be “relative” if the quantity of GHGs increases less quickly than GDP. It is said to be “absolute” if GHGs stop increasing – or even decreasing – when GDP grows. The ultimate objective is to achieve total decoupling which decorrelates, on the one hand, human action in general (and the economy in particular) and, on the other hand, nature as a whole, so as to eliminate any negative impact of human activities on the environment. This involves achieving carbon neutrality, depolluting the planet, restoring biodiversity, regenerating nature, etc.
The degrowth solution is dirigiste, even liberticidal. It requires determining politically what the legitimate needs of the population are and to what extent and at what pace they can be satisfied. It requires sacrifices so radical that it seems illusory to obtain the support of the population (we say “changing mentalities”). We remember the yellow vests yesterday. We can see the scale of the farmers’ protests today. What about tomorrow when it will be necessary to implement much more restrictive measures and in all sectors simultaneously? Even if the population were to follow, the means proposed by degrowthers are, even in the most “hardcore” version, insufficient to achieve the 2050 climate objective.
Let us judge: a French person emits on average around 11 tonnes of CO2 per year. However, to get back on track, we must reach two tonnes per person. By boycotting planes and all motor vehicles from now on, eliminating meat, fish, eggs and dairy products, eating locally, only buying second-hand, and making do every winter at home with a temperature of 18 degrees and several layers of sweaters, etc., a French person will struggle to get down to four or five tons per year. This is what the famous “Doing your part” analysis by Carbone 4 (2019) demonstrates. Certainly laudable efforts but insufficient. We will be told that the rest of the efforts fall on businesses and the State. This forgets that, if the entire population adopts this ascetic lifestyle, these economic actors will become penniless, due to lack of income and tax revenue. Impossible to finance major structural investments in decarbonization in a declining economy where the volume of goods sold and services provided will have collapsed. Shifter degrowthists believe – or pretend to believe – that national wealth remains unchanged while they dry up its source.
Rebound effect
The decoupling solution, for its part, is not exempt from criticism. Among degrowthists, the decoupling between GDP and GHGs arouses smiles and sarcasm. They cite several studies claiming that it is a myth. However, in its 2022 report, the IPCC affirms that several countries have reached absolute decoupling: 23 countries have decoupled GDP and GHGs emitted on the territory. And, among them, 14 have achieved decoupling between GDP and GHGs attributable to their consumption: this means that they manage not to increase GHGs even though their GDP increases and this for all the goods consumed on their territory when well even the latter would have been produced outside.
In this case, we cannot, as is often done, ironize about the result by asserting that they would have “exported their pollution” by relocating abroad the factories producing their consumer goods because, precisely, everything that is consumed is counted. But, detractors add, these countries are a minority and decoupling would be too slow to avoid irreversibly exceeding planetary limits. Another criticism: part of the observed decoupling can also be explained by the significant reduction in the growth rate due to the various crises (Covid, energy, etc.), which suggests that it would be temporary. But above all, it is only partial: it does not matter, they will say, if certain rich countries manage to achieve it because only the sum of GHGs emitted at the global level counts and the latter increases every year. Just like the quantity of materials extracted and used, and the energy produced and consumed. Final argument of the degrowthists: the rebound effect. Any gain made thanks to a more efficient process (for example, a bulb which requires less electricity while providing the same light intensity) is automatically canceled by greater consumption either directly (you increase your electricity consumption by purchasing, for example , a second television) or indirectly (the money saved on electricity finances, for example, a minitrip). In both cases, we would ultimately have gained nothing…
What do you think? Decoupling exists, in an absolute form, but only in some economically rich countries and in a relative form in others. Furthermore, the IPCC tells us, 67 of the 116 emerging countries have even begun relative decoupling. Let’s move on to another concept: the so-called “Kuznets” ecological curve, empirically validated over the last fifty years, is an inverted U-shaped curve which demonstrates that after a period of extremely polluting development, a country, once it reaches a certain level of GDP, experiences a peak in pollution which stabilizes before collapsing as GDP grows. Similarly, if several countries achieve decoupling at an advanced stage of economic development, many others will follow. Those who – and not the least (India, China, etc.) – follow them are those who pollute the most today but who, past a certain threshold of development which they get closer to each day, will begin their decoupling because they will then be able to finance it.
Moral imperative
Should we believe that decoupling would be of no use because the gain would be canceled out by an increase in consumption? This is a misunderstanding common to many studies challenging decoupling. For what ? Let’s first say that the degrowthists are right on one point: the rebound effect is a reality. Indeed, we are not going to reduce our consumption because we have satisfied our basic needs. But the misunderstanding lies in this: what is the aim? Reduce consumption to reduce greenhouse gases or reduce greenhouse gases (GHG)? Thinking that it is necessary to reduce consumption to reduce GHGs is a decresivist postulate. Erroneous postulate according to supporters of decoupling. As long as economic activity does not damage the environment, consumption ceases to be a problem. Far from condemning the increase in consumption, we must encourage it and even establish it as a moral imperative: the more growth increases, the more decoupling accelerates at the global level.
It is true that decoupling is still partial and local, but it is a process that requires a transition period. On what grounds do the degrowthists make fun of the incomplete nature of the implementation of decoupling when they give themselves until 2050 to put their own model in place? It is true that decoupling risks slowing down or even regressing if growth stagnates or declines. Reason why it must remain important. It does not matter whether the total amount of materials extracted and processed increases or whether the amount of energy produced and consumed increases. Certainly, activists have been predicting an imminent shortage of resources for more than 50 years. Just as we have been told for 175 years of the imminent death of capitalism. But the reality is that stocks on earth are abundant, well beyond what is needed for a successful transition.
From this perspective, the rebound effect, far from being a curse, must be seen as a blessing: a prosperous population with expanding needs makes it possible to accelerate the movement of the world economy towards the other side of the the Kuznets curve. What is important is that the level of GDP necessary to finance global decoupling is reached as quickly as possible so that the total quantity of CO2 quickly reaches its ceiling and then decreases drastically. What matters is that poor countries meet our standards to finance alternatives to burning wood and coal, deforesting at all costs or massively dumping plastic into our oceans. What matters is that decoupling occurs before the planet’s limits are irreversibly exceeded. What matters is not the adoption of a sober lifestyle but an environmentally friendly lifestyle through decoupling in a world free of poverty. The priority, ultimately, is not sobriety but prosperity.
The urgency of an industrial revolution
Decoupling urgently requires an industrial revolution and therefore both massive private investment and an industrial policy on a scale never seen in human history: low-carbon energy production (nuclear and renewable), the electrification of industrial processes, the capture of CO2, the manufacturing of hydrogen and green molecules, the reopening of (clean) mines in Europe, the production of carbon-neutral synthetic fuel – based on hydrogen and captured CO2 – for heavy vehicles, cargo ships and planes, precision agriculture, new genomic techniques, massive reforestation and the regeneration of terrestrial and maritime biodiversity.
The main enemy of the environment is not the increase in consumption but the conservatism, precautionism, inertia and procrastination of public authorities in relation to this industrial redeployment and, above all, everything which – like the degrowthist discourse – slows down or hinders this ecological revolution essential to achieving decoupling. This industrial policy must be implemented urgently because each minute that passes increases the probability of a failure of the ecological transition and an irreversible destruction of cycles and eco-services essential to our survival.
* Corentin de Salle is a professor at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes Commerciales and scientific director of the Jean Gol Center
Damien Ernst is a professor at the University of Liège and Télécom Paris