News From the European Union

Brussels, April 15, 2009. European Parliament Looks at Religious Intolerance, in particular in China

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The Flemish Association for Sustainable Development/VODO and the Club of Rome, Brussels-EU Chapter, organized a conference, on April 16, hosted by MEP Bart Staes of Belgium, at the European Parliament which dealt with sustainable development and implications of climate change on the topic of “Socially Sustainable Economic Degrowth”. Reproduced below is a 1000 word article by Kealan Gell – a student from Canada, reporting on this well-attended and informative event. The conference was a good opportunity to meet or renew contact with experts and activitists in the ecological movement and people concerned with our ecological footprint and EBBF core value of the stewardship of the earth resources.

A Narrative of the Degrowth Discussion at EU Parliament

Written by Kealan Gell

Bart Staes, MEP, opened by citing environmental problems, the Declaration of Tilburg, and some of his own writing, which sounded at least somewhat related. It looked like a good start. A quick comment from the Chair, and Francois Schneider took the floor. He is at the forefront of the Degrowth movement in France. He presented a series of slides which began with the declaration of the First International Degrowth Conference of April 2008 in Paris. The language was strong, and clear. Economic growth no longer serves a positive purpose for society in developed countries, not in the case of jobs, poverty, well being, environmental protection, social justice, and ultimately our survival as a prosperous civilization. He described how and why the rebound effect means increasing efficiency does not lead to an absolute reduction in resource use. He described why inequality is aggravated by privilege and high consumption levels. He described a vision of a localized, pleasant of society with lower extraction of resources – less bulldozers, less advertizing, etc. Francois stressed the importance that degrowth must be voluntary and democratic, not an involuntary collapse! In an involuntary collapse, the benefits of degrowth will not be realized. Finally, he described the lack of absolute limits in current “sustainable development” plans. Perhaps he used the wrong words, or perhaps people weren’t paying attention. While much of the room already understood and agreed, it appeared that those who didn’t weren’t ready to consider such an idea seriously.

Francois was followed by Raoul Weiler from the Club of Rome and Stefan Giljum from SERI. They both brought a more mainstream, perhaps sophisticated perspective. They also highlighted the point that there must be absolute limits, such as footprints or green capacity. The Club of Rome is now commissioning a report on the Limits to Wastes and Sinks. Stefan made the interesting point that resource consumption within Europe has not decreased, despite outsourcing most industrial activity to other countries. Further more, citing Eurostat’s assumption of economic growth of 3% per year, resource intensity of GDP must be decreased by around 8 fold by 2050 to even decrease our current throughput of resources and waste by half. Is this possible? It would be a lot easier without 3% growth of GDP! Finally, again highlighting the lack of absolute limits, Stefan suggested tax or certificates for resource use and extraction, similar to what now exists for carbon dioxide. Such an incentive could reduce vulnerability and improve competitiveness and ethical standing for Europe, as it would no longer suck resources from poor and unstable regions, or not as much.

Dr. Joan Martinez-Alier, former president of the ISEE and degrowth heavy-weight, made a brief panel contribution, where he cited decades of scientific, peer reviewed, economic work and the long history of degrowth ideals. He touched on world population and suggested that we may have already peaked in both oil and population: perhaps involuntary degrowth has already begun.

The two final panel contributors had not been convinced by the others and explained that the concept of degrowh had been difficult to understand, too focused on ecology and resources and somewhat inconsistent. They made statements such as “We can find economic growth that doesn’t damage the environment,” and “Economic growth leads to improved welfare in Africa.” From their perspective, economic degrowth is political suicide. Also, they remarked on the fact that there are solutions to energy crisis and that GDP is flawed because it doesn’t take into account volunteer work. They didn’t however explain in detail how increases in economic production would lead to improved well being in the richest countries of Europe. I think it was simply assumed, as it is still the unquestionable religion of western society.

The Chair, Paul Metz asked the audience of around 100 to ask questions and respond to what they had heard.

First was Bernard Lietaer from Berkeley who explained that the current financial system necessitates growth and this key point is critical to the discussion! Greedy, unregulated bankers have created current economic collapse and restructuring is certainly necessary. He also suggested “smart growth” or some alternative terminology for degrowth since the latter seems to scare people. I think another idea would be to target degrowth at only certain sectors of the economy, such as the extraction industry. “Personal well being, relationships and cohesion of society can improve with degrowth. There is too much emphasis on the environmental benefits and not enough on the social benefits!”

Some militant young men made powerful comments, citing the seriousness of ecological collapse as published in Nature and their own experiences with minimal level of consumption – arguing that degrowth is possible and urgent.

When it came back to the panel, the questions were asked “What can we agree on? What should politicians do?” Everyone touched on the financial system – some stating that alternatives do not yet exist and others arguing the opposite. Nobody reconsidered their story and few recognized that others’ points were made with the same goals and similar logic. However there were some underlying themes of agreement; GDP is not a good indicator of well being or progress, and we must take advantage of the current economic crisis.

One of the organizers of the discussion, Leida Rijnhout made a very strong ending for degrowth, touching on the concept of ecological debt: a legal framework for theft and destruction of resources by rich countries from the poor south. She also clarified that nobody is promoting degrowth in the poor world. She said in this discussion, the dreamers are the mainstream, rather the realists believe degrowth is necessary.

Finally, Bart Staes told the story of how Martin Luther King’s success came when he moved his rhetoric from gloomy arguments about slavery to “I have a dream!” What are the solutions? Can we employ millions of laid off oil drillers to fill the jobs previously done by oil? Can we a realize a low consumption, healthy, happy, locally self sufficient society? Can we allow starving, impoverished countries to increase their material consumption? Would all of this require a reduction or an increase in economic production in the richest parts of Europe?

It seems there is no consensus yet, however the ideas of degrowth economics were certainly presented.