Library

By: Simone D'Alessandro, Kristofer Dittmer, André Cieplinski, Tiziano Distefano

Climate change and increasing income inequality have emerged as twin threats to contemporary standards of living, peace and democracy. These two problems are usually tackled separately in the policy agenda. A new breed of radical proposals have been advanced to manage a fair low-carbon transition. In this spirit, we develop a dynamic macrosimulation model to investigate the long-term effect...

By: Esther Ngumbi

"Highlighting activists of color is good for everyone. Convincingly, a growing body of evidence shows that when minorities and underrepresented voices are included, and their voices and actions displayed, including in science, everyone benefits."

By: Peter Newell, Olivia Taylor

With fires, storms, social protests, and climate strikes sweeping the world, 2019 should have been a tipping point in how the world responds to global heating. This was the backdrop to the COP25 climate change summit which took place in Madrid in December 2019. This paper assesses the outcomes of the meeting and the path towards the critically important meeting in Glasgow at the end of 2020...

By: Kaja Emilsson, Håkan Johansson, Magnus Wennerhag

Present debates suppose a close linkage between economic, social, and environmental sustainability and suggest that individual wellbeing and living standards need to be understood as directly linked to environmental concerns. Because social movements are often seen as an avant-garde in pushing for change, this article analyzes climate protesters’ support for three key frames in current periods ...

By: Adeline Otto, Dimitri Gugushvili

In the face of accelerating global warming and attendant natural disasters, it is clear that governments all over the world eventually have to take measures to mitigate the most adverse consequences of climate change. However, the costs of these measures are likely to force governments to reconsider some of their tax and spending priorities, of which social spending is the largest expenditure i...

By: Sarah Hafner, Aled Jones, Annela Anger-Kraavi, Jan Pohl

Meeting its climate policy objectives requires the UK to rapidly decarbonise its energy sector. This demands high levels of investments into low carbon energy infrastructure, which are currently not undertaken at required scale, leading to a green finance gap. We explore (1) key investment barriers, (2) a theoretical framework for investigation and (3) possible solutions, drawing on a review of...

By: Cle-Anne Gabriel

Cle-Anne Gabriel is a Lecturer at the University of Queensland, and the Business School’s Director for the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education. Her research focuses on the areas of sustainable development and postgrowth futures. During our conversation, Cle-Anne Gabriel questions the compatibility between environmental sustainability and economic growth. Is a de-pr...

By: Adrian Haßler, Chandni Dwarkasing, Elli Reckmann, Filka Sekulova, Francois Schneider, Irene Iniesta-Arandia, Larry Edwards, Laura Machler, Matthias Schmelzer, Manuel Grebenjak, Magdalena Heuwieser, Nuria Blázquez Sánchez, Rose Bridger, Sara Mingorría

In July 2019, the Stay Grounded Network met in Barcelona to discuss how to counter the massive growth in the aviation sector. A new movement for degrowing aviation and fostering climate justice was born. The results of the conference and further discussions fed into this report, outlining numerous measures to reduce air travel in a just way. (Excerpt)

By: Max Koch, Martin Fritz

The emerging concept of sustainable welfare attempts to integrate environmental sustainability and social welfare research. Oriented at a mid-term re-embedding of Western production and consumption norms into planetary limits, it suggests the development of “eco-social” policies in the rich countries. In this theoretical context, this article empirically investigates the relationships between a...

By: Tim Jackson, Peter A. Victor

This working paper presents a stock-flow consistent (SFC) simulation model of a national economy, calibrated on the basis of Canadian data. LowGrow SFC describes the evolution of the Canadian economy in terms of six financial sectors whose behaviour is based on ‘stylised facts’ in the Post-Keynesian tradition. A key feature of the model is its ability to provide a systematic account, not only o...

By: Shaun Sellers

"A climate policy must change the way that the global economy works if it is to be successful, but if a policy is effective enough to disrupt global trade, it will violate global trade rules."

By: Gareth Dale

Radical action on climate change is at last on the agenda. The emphasis is on urgency and action and - for XR notably - ‘truth.’ Questions of long-term strategy are less clear, but strategy platforms have been advanced. Foremost among them are the Green New Deal (GND) and degrowth. This article provides a comparison and sketches lines of convergence  

By: Barry Gils, Jamie Morgan

This Special Editorial on the Climate Emergency makes the case that although we are living in the time of Global Climate Emergency we are not yet acting as if we are in an imminent crisis. The authors review key aspects of the institutional response and climate science over the past several decades and the role of the economic system in perpetuating inertia on reduction of greenhouse gas emissi...

By: Nina Treu, Peter Altmaier, Robert Habeck, Carolin Roth, Mario Gutmann, Karl Haeusgen

Deutschlands Wirtschaft rutscht ab. Die Industrie leidet unter US-Handelskriegen, Brexit-Angst und schwächerer Weltwirtschaft. Stehen wir vor einer der üblichen Konjunkturkrisen oder vor einem epochalen Umbruch? Klimaschutz und Digitalisierung zwingen die Unternehmen zu Abbau und Umbau der alten Arbeitsplätze, zum „Neu-Erfinden“ ganzer Produktionszweige. Wen erreicht die Krise zuerst? Für...

By: Lukas Hardt, Karen Turner, Paul Brockway, Grant Allan, John Barrett, Peter McGregor, Andrew Ross, Kim Swales, Marco Sakai

This study investigates how an increase in exports (a key pillar in the UK Industrial Strategy) could impact energy and industrial policy by comparing two types of energy-economy models. Achieving the targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions set out in the UK Climate Change Act will require a significant transformation in the UK's energy system. At the same time, the government is pursuing...

By: Max Koch, Martin Fritz

Abstract: The emerging concept of sustainable welfare attempts to integrate environmental sustainability and social welfare research. Oriented at a mid-term re-embedding of Western production and consumption norms into planetary limits, it suggests the development of “eco-social” policies in the rich countries. In this theoretical context, this article empirically investigates the relationship...

By: Teresa Anderson, Stefania Barca, Grace Blakeley, Friedrich Bohn, Sam Bright, Giacomo D'Alisa, Nick Dearden, Nicoletta Dentico, Laura C. Zanetti-Domingues, Dirk Ehnts, Skender Fani, Julia Fish, Charlotte Hanson, Jason Hickel, Nick Jacobs, Giorgos Kallis, Tessa Khan, Mat Lawrence, Laurie Laybourn-Langton, Emanuele Leonardi, Ruth London, Riccardo Mastini, Bill McKibben, Julian Brave NoiseCat, David Powell, Jérémy Rodrigues, Jakob Schäfer, Christoph Schneider, Giovanna Sissa, Isaac Stanley, Will Stronge, Sean Sweeney

Europe today confronts two crises. The first is an economic crisis, with rising levels of poverty, insecurity, and homelessness across the continent. The second is a climate and environmental crisis, with severe consequences for Europe’s front-line communities and even more perilous ones on the horizon. Both crises are the products of Europe’s political decisions, and they are closely bound t...

By: Tim Jackson

This briefing paper addresses the question of when the UK should aim for zero (or net zero) carbon emissions. Starting from the global carbon budget which would allow the world an estimated 66% chance of limiting climate warming to 1.5oC, the paper derives a carbon budget for the UK of 2.5 GtCO2. The briefing then analyses a variety of emission pathways and target dates in terms of their adequa...

By: George Martine, Jose Eustaquio Alves

Scientists warn that human activity in the Anthropocene is causing the transgression of several planetary boundaries. The population/environment/development equation has become insoluble. This paper reviews the trajectory of climate change and discusses the shortcomings of ongoing efforts to address it. It analyzes the current crisis in global governance, fostered by widespread disenchantment w...

By: Fritz Hinterberger, Olivier de Schutter, Patrizia Heidegger, Luisa Santos

Chair: Kathleen Van Brempt, MEP (S&D) Panellists: Fritz Hinterberger (Founding President of Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI)), Olivier de Schutter (Professor at the University of Louvain (Belgium) and at SciencesPo (Paris), former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food (2008-2014)), Patrizia Heidegger (Global Policies Director at the EEB), Luisa Santos (Business...