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Changing from a consumer economy to a conserver economy – painful but necessary

Dieter Helm: One definition of madness is said to be persisting with Plan A in the face of all the evidence that it is not working, and avoiding even thinking about a Plan B. But, after 30 years and 26 COPs — Conferences of the Parties to the UN’s 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change — that pretty much sums up our approach to climate change.

Every year since1990, we have added another two parts per million to the concentration of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — including in the lockdown years 2020 and 2021. The case for “one more heave” looks pretty slim.

The current preoccupation with economic growth based on stimulating demand, Keynesian-style, with negative real interest rates and quantitative easing, and ever greater borrowing for the next generation to repay, suggests the omens are not good.

This sort of economics is pretty obviously not environmentally sustainable. Yet the obvious consequence is ignored: it will not be sustained. With 3C or more of warming, the loss of a big chunk more of biodiversity, and the rainforests gone, all those new ideas and technologies will not be enough to stave off the costs of the environmental downhill our unsustainable consumption is causing.

Political leadership is about telling it as it is, not pretending it is all painless. Adjusting back to a sustainable consumption path would be painful in the short term, but not in the longer term — and it will be a lot less painful than continuing with Plan A.

 FT 19th Jan 2022

https://www.ft.com/content/13702f42-a923-4cd8-a6c7-03f775a0742b

January 21, 2022 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized