I'm excited to announce this new piece we have in Nature Sustainability, on the question of post-growth and China. To me, this is the important point: post-growth *must* take account of world-system dynamics and should facilitate, not compromise, Southern liberation. nature.com
www.nature.com
We explore a global post-growth scenario where all countries converge to levels of consumption compatible with achieving the Paris Agreement objectives. In this scenario, China's average consumption can increase ~3x while its elites reduce consumption and the core degrows to converge. We also ask: in a scenario where the core degrows at a rate of 5%, would China face adverse economic consequences? We find the answer is no, hardly at all. In fact, across the South, any harms due to Northern degrowth would be a small fraction of baseline growth rates. Finally, we discuss synergies and differences between post-growth and China's discourse on "ecological civilisation". There's lots in common, and they can learn from one another. One thing that China adds, which is often missing in post-growth, is a focus on planning and Southern sovereignty. Note that our convergence scenario targets $34,000 GDP per capita PPP. This is 50% higher than current global GDP. But our scenario does not include sectoral change, as post-growth should (!), which can enable faster decoupling and increase the level of GDP that is compatible with Paris goals. Therefore, the convergence threshold indicated here should be understood as a modelling heuristic - just for the purposes of exploring various questions - rather than a necessary limit.