Climate Change and Participatory Economic Planning

Molly Scott CatoReader in Green Economics, Cardiff School of Management

Research Question

• In a finite world, where there is competition between needs, how can we determine in a social and participative way how to prioritise needs? As we move towards a low-energy future, it will be important to ensure that such decisions are made democratically rather than solely on the basis of ability to pay.

Where we are going?

• Can we shop our way to sustainability?

• Growth, Equity and Sustainability

• Measuring what we need

• Negotiating what we need • ‘The Same Boat’ by Polyp

A green economy?

Green capitalism?

• 'We can't shop our way to sustainability because the problems we face cannot be solved by individual choices in the markeplace. They require collective democratic control over the economy to prioritize the needs of society and the environment' And the require national and international economic planning to re-organize the economy and redeploy labour and resources to these ends'.

Capitalism needs growth

• ‘Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.’• Kenneth Boulding

CO2 intensity of GDP across nations: 1980–2006

Carbon Intensities Now and Required to Meet 450 ppm Target

Can less be more?

Hazel Henderson

• ‘An economy based on renewable resources carefully managed for sustained yield and long-term productivity of all its resources can provide useful, satisfying work and richly rewarding life-styles for all its participants. However, it simply cannot provide support for enormous pyramided capital structures and huge overheads, large pay differentials, windfall returns on investments, and capital gains to investors.’

Growth and Equity

• ‘Growth is a substitute for equality of income. So long as there is growth there is hope, and that makes large income differentials tolerable’

• ‘this relation holds both ways round. It is not simply that growth is a substitute for equality, it is that greater equality makes growth much less necessary. It is a precondition for a steady-state economy.’ (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009: 221-2).

Prosperity without Growth?

• Sustainable Development Commission suggested ‘flourishing within limits’

• So far there have been no attempts to categorise and measure different types of consumption and their social usefulness.

How to share the limited resources?

• Market allocates on the basis of ability to pay

• Brundtland definition focuses on needs

• Markets as social institutions

Max-Neef’s Needs vs. Satisfiers Matrix

Being (qualities)

Having (things)

Doing (actions)

Interacting (settings)

Subsistence Physical, emotional and mental health

Food, shelter, work

Word, feed, procreate, clothes, rest/sleep

Living environ-ment, social setting

Identify Sense of belonging, self-esteem, consistency

Symbols, language, religion, values, work, customs

Self-awareness, grow, commit-ment, self-realisation

Places one belongs to, everyday settings

• The research project adopts an interdisciplinary approach to determine how we, as individuals, determine our needs

• It then moves on to question how needs might be defined at a societal level

• Questions conflicts between these two imperatives could be brought into closer alignment though economic policies that create appropriate incentives

• The objective is to devise a ‘matrix of need’ analogous to the ‘matrix of harm’ proposed as a new standard for drugs policy

Methods?

• Deliberative mapping• Foresighting• Participatory

economic planning• Boundary between

academic research and public engagement

• World café

Research design

1. Introduce the Max-Neef framework – needs, satisfiers and goods

2. Introduce four key themes: Comfort (housing and fuel), Shopping (food and clothing), Connections (transport and IT) and Fun (leisure and family)

3. Split into four groups and instruct each to identify the four most important needs in these areas, how they could satisfy them with the minimum use of energy, and what goods would be essential to satisfy them.

Living experimentally

Find out more

www.greeneconomist.org

gaianeconomics.blogspot.com

Green Economics: AnIntroduction to Theory, Policy and Practice (Earthscan, 2009)

Environment and Economy(Routledge, 2011)