Degrowth: why some economists think abandoning growth is the only way to save the planet

Some economists have long argued that to really save the planet – and ourselves – from the climate crisis, we need a fundamental overhaul of the way our economies work. In this episode, we explore the ideas of the degrowth movement and their calls for a contraction in the world’s consumption of energy and resources. We also compare degrowth to other post-growth proposals for governments to reduce their fixation on economic growth.

Featuring Samuel Alexander, research fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne in Australia, Lorenzo Fioramonti, full professor of political economy at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and also a serving Italian MP, and Beth Stratford PhD candidate at the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds in the UK.

And Veronika Meduna, science, health and environment editor at The Conversation in Wellington, gives us some recommended reading about the coronavirus situation in New Zealand. 

The Conversation Weekly is produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. You can sign up to The Conversation’s free daily email here. Full credits for this episode available here.

Further reading

• Beyond GDP: here’s a better way to measure people’s prosperity, by Henrietta Moore,UCL
• Time for degrowth: to save the planet, we must shrink the economy, by Jason Hickel, London School of Economics and Political Science
• Rediscover the ideas of Jacques Ellul, pioneer of décroissance, by Patrick Chastenet, Université de Bordeaux (in French)
• ‘If you want summer, get vaccinated’ – Jacinda Ardern sets the target for re-opening New Zealand, by Michael Plank, University of Canterbury and Shaun Hendy, University of Auckland
• New Zealand cannot abandon its COVID elimination strategy while Māori and Pasifika vaccination rates are too low, by Collin Tukuitonga, University of Auckland