[A Global Green New Deal will entail sustainable economic growth,
the creation of a wind/solar energy infrastructure replacing fossil
fuels, restoration of natural ecosystems, agro-ecologies, green
infrastructure] [[link removed]]

A CRITIQUE OF DEGROWTH  
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David Schwartzman
January 5, 2022
Climate & Capitalism
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_ A Global Green New Deal will entail sustainable economic growth,
the creation of a wind/solar energy infrastructure replacing fossil
fuels, restoration of natural ecosystems, agro-ecologies, green
infrastructure _

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The positive contributions of the degrowth proponents should be
recognized, in particular, their rethinking of economic growth under
capitalism, critiquing its measure, the GNP/GDP, as well as pointing
to capitalism’s unsustainable use of natural resources, in
particular fossil fuels in its production of commodities for profit
generation regardless of their impact on the health of people and the
environment. Further, they wisely critique eco-modernists who claim
that simply substituting the right technology into the present
political economy of capitalism will be sufficient to meet human and
nature’s needs.

But the degrowth solutions offered are highly flawed and their brand
is not likely to be welcomed by the global working class, even as it
attracts sections of the professional class.[1] Degrowth proponents
commonly fail to unpack the qualitative aspects of economic growth,
lumping all in one basket; i.e., sustainable/addressing essential
needs of humans and nature versus unsustainable, leaving the majority
of humanity in poverty or worse. Degrowthers point to the relatively
privileged status of workers in the global North compared to those in
the global South as a big part of the problem, instead of recognizing
that the transnational working class will not only benefit from growth
of sectors that meet its needs in both the global North and South but
must be the leading force to defeat fossil capital.[1, 2, 3]

A common claim in the degrowth discourse is that “perpetual growth
on a finite planet leads inexorably to environmental
calamity.”[4] This assertion fails to deconstruct the qualitative
aspects of growth, what is growing, what should degrow, under what
energy regime? While of course there are obvious limits to the growth
of the global physical infrastructure, why can’t knowledge and
culture continue to grow for a long time into the future in a globally
sustainable and just physical and political economy?

In addition, leading degrowthers say ’The global material and energy
“throughput” has to degrow, starting with those nations that are
ecologically indebted to the rest. Energy and material throughput have
to degrow because the materials extracted from the earth cause huge
damage to ecosystems and to the people that depend on them.’ [5].
In contrast: With respect to material throughput, we argue that it
should increase globally in an ecosocialist transition as a
culmination of a Green New Deal:

“In an ecosocialist transition, as at least we envision it, the plan
would not be simply for degrowth, but for a complete phasing out of
the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC). The disappearance of MIC would
liberate vast quantities of materials, especially metals, for the
creation of a global wind and solar power infrastructure.”[6]

Leading degrowthers advocate a global reduction in energy
consumption,[5, 7, 8] which is a prescription for mass death for most
of humanity, because it will condemn them to a state of energy poverty
even worse than present, as well as prevent the creation of the
wind/solar power capacity necessary for climate adaptation and
mitigation. This scenario would make it virtually impossible to meet
the 1.5 deg C global warming target, hence increasing the potential
for climate catastrophe with horrors much worse than we now witness.

And finally they advocate for the goal of a “satisfactory” quality
of life for most of humanity living in the global South, in contrast
to a higher standard for many in the global North, instead of
demanding and mapping out a path to the highest state-of-the-science
life expectancy/quality of life achievable for all children in their
lifetime.[9, 10]

This critique of degrowth has important implications to the agenda and
strategy of a Global Green New Deal (GGND). In this context, while
degrowthers wisely argue for reducing energy consumption in energy
wasteful U.S., in a transition to renewable energy, they once again
claim that globally energy use should go down by a significant level
over the coming decades.[8, 11, 12] If increasingly informed by an
ecosocialist agenda, a GGND will entail sustainable economic growth,
the creation of a wind/solar energy infrastructure replacing fossil
fuels, restoration of natural ecosystems, agro-ecologies, green
infrastructure etc.

Degrowthers fail to recognize the critical difference between the high
efficiency capture of the solar flux generating wind/solar power and
the fossil fuel energy supply because of their lack of understanding
of thermodynamics, in particular the entropy concept in their
appropriation of Georgescu-Roegen’s (G-R) fallacious so-called 4th
law, which conflates open and closed systems with respect to energy
and mass transfers; the Earth’s surface is not closed but rather
open to energy going in and out. It should be noted that G-R’s 4th
law was rejected over thirty years ago even by leading ecological
economics scholars who recognized that incoming solar radiation could
be the energy supply of global civilization.[13] A sufficient global
solar/wind energy supply, greater than the present global consumption
level, can eliminate energy poverty raising the global life expectancy
to the world’s highest level, while creating the capacity for
climate mitigation and adaptation. Further, this renewable energy
supply can facilitate the virtual end of extractive mining by
recycling and industrial ecologies.[14]

Real zero, not “net zero,” is the only potential path to meeting
the 1.5 deg C warming target set by the IPCC, in a progressively
unfolding ecosocialist GND by building capacity of the transnational
working class and its allies (indigenous communities, ecofeminist
women’s movements and all oppressed people around the world) to
undermine the imperial agenda of the MIC and defeat militarized fossil
capital and its political instruments in governments. At the same time
“green” capital must be challenged by building a global regulatory
regime necessary for environmental, worker and community protection.

Extractivism is a very real challenge that must be confronted in a
wind/solar transition terminating fossil fuels, to create a truly just
process which protects the rights and health of indigenous people
around the world, along with the workforce and communities affected.
There are significant future opportunities to limit mining in this
transition, namely recycling the huge supplies of metals now embedded
in the fossil fuel and military infrastructures, substituting common
elements for rare ones (e.g., batteries using NaS, Fe/air etc.),
enhancing public transit instead of relying on manufacturing hundreds
of millions of electric cars. There are now significant energy savings
in recycling metals instead of mining their ores:

 “recycled aluminum metal (e.g., in the form of cans), which can be
simply cleaned and re-melted, saving 94% of the energy that would be
required to produce the aluminum from ore…The largest energy savings
achieved by recycling are generally for metals, which are often easy
to recycle and otherwise typically need to be produced by
energy-intensive mining and processing of ore. For example, energy
savings from beryllium recycling are 80%, lead 75%, iron and steel
72%, and cadmium 50%.”[15]

As the renewable energy supplies grow globally using this energy to
recycle would sharply reduce greenhouse emissions as well as mining.
These opportunities reinforce the need for a renewable energy
transition increasingly informed by an ecosocialist agenda, especially
global demilitarization and social governance of production and
consumption.

In our recently published paper modeling a real zero transition, we
conclude that with the complete termination of coal/natural gas
consumption in 10 years, and conventional oil in 20 years, a global
wind/solar energy capacity using present technologies can be generated
that is sufficient to end energy poverty in the global South, and
provide for effective climate mitigation and adaptation.[14]  Rapid
restoration of natural ecosystems and shift to
agroecologies/regenerative agriculture are imperative and will
contribute to climate mitigation but will be limited by future warming
up to the 1.5 deg C target because of reduction in the capacity and
saturation of the soil carbon pool. Hence, Direct Air Capture of
carbon dioxide and permanent storage in the crust will be likely
needed to meet this warming goal.

In a provocative dialogue confronting the existential challenges that
humanity now faces, John Bellamy Foster says. “that we need a
socialist democratically planned economy that emphasizes low-energy
solutions and decreases waste and destruction; that the world has to
move toward equal per capita levels of energy use, somewhere around
the level of Italy today (allowing poor countries to catch up.)”[16]

I agree with this advice, if “low-energy solutions” means meeting
human and nature’s real needs with the minimum energy necessary.
Further, our own estimate of the necessary per capita energy use for
terminating global energy poverty is very close to Italy’s present
primary energy consumption per capita level, approximately 3 to 3.4 kW
per capita, with the latter level computed from the pre-pandemic
energy data of 2019, noting the 10 percent decline in 2020.[3, 14,
17] Note that Italy is ranked 6 for life expectancy of countries of
the world.[18] Assuming a population level of 9 billion and an
increase in the energy efficiency factor of 30%, we project a global
primary energy consumption level goal for 2050 corresponding to a
power level of 19 TW, the same as present. However, incremental energy
supplies will be required for climate mitigation and adaptation as
well as meeting other challenges that will increase this goal to no
more than 1.5 times the present level, i.e., 29 TW. [14]

Foster goes on:

“Thus, Hickel’s work (along with that of Andreas Malm and others)
is referred to in the leaked Part 3 of the IPCC’s _Sixth
Assessment _as pointing to the possibility for low-energy strategies,
seen as the main hope now of staying below a 1.5°C increase in global
average temperature, and as providing arguments with respect to the
unsustainability of capitalism.”[19]

and,

“The only real hope in the years immediately ahead, the leaked
‘Mitigation Report’ suggests, is low- energy strategies, which can
reduce energy use by 40 percent, while at the same time improving the
human condition.”[20]

However, rather than a 40 percent reduction, achieving global equity
at Italy’s present primary energy consumption level as Foster
advocates will result in “improving the human condition” by
eliminating global energy poverty in the next few decades of this
century, while meeting the 1.5 deg C warming target will require more
energy capacity than present as discussed previously.

Since GDP has been effectively critiqued by degrowthers as a measure
of a sustainable economy, while recognizing the great negative impacts
of high GDP economies dominated by fossil capital, the GDP level by
itself is not necessarily an indicator of unwelcome economic growth.
Qualitative analysis is needed. Are the components of the economy
responsible for the GDP contributing to economic growth that is needed
for addressing human and nature’s needs or are they promoting the
increasing threat of climate catastrophe and ecosystem collapse?
Nevertheless, it is essential to recognize that decoupling economic
growth from bad outcomes under capital reproduction in GGND will only
be partially realized unless a robust ecosocialist transition is
achieved. Hence it is no surprise that decoupling in capitalist
economies has been so far at best very modest.[21]

There are several examples of degrowth low-energy mitigation
scenarios.[22] They are characterized by low GDP, no negative
emissions technologies other than enhancing soil carbon stores, and
global reduction in energy consumption. We argue that if implemented
they would leave the global South with energy poverty, and the world
with an insufficient global energy capacity for climate mitigation and
adaptation, risking breaching the 1.5 deg C warming target. In
contrast, our scenario would entail a moderate to high GDP, creating
high global wind/solar power capacity, and once sufficient wind/solar
power is in place the likely implementation of direct air capture of
carbon dioxide/permanent storage in the crust. [14]

Foster clearly identifies responsibility for the ecological debt.

“Moreover, the burden in our time has to be put primarily on the
rich countries, since they are the ones that have used up most of the
global carbon budget, have higher per capita wealth, the highest per
capita energy consumption, the highest carbon footprints per capita,
and also monopolize much of the technology. The core capitalist system
in the Global North is primarily responsible for most of the increases
in carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere since the Industrial
Revolution. Today, the bulk of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions are
concentrated in a few hundred global corporations and military
spending. All of this underscores that the rich capitalist countries
at the center of the world system owe an ecological debt to the rest
of the world.”[23]

An ecosocialist GGND has the potential of facilitating a path
to _electrified solar communism_ in the 21st century,[24, 6,
25] the _Solarcommunicene._ [26] Foster and Clark have named the
post-Capitalinian (world dominated by capital reproduction) age
the _Communian_.[27]

NOTES

[1] Matt Huber 2021, Lifestyle Environmentalism Will Never Win Over
Workers,
[link removed]…
[[link removed]].

[2] Matt Huber 2021, Climate Doom Won’t Save the Planet,
[link removed] [[link removed]]
2021/07/working-class-vision-climate-change-green-new-deal.

[3] Peter Schwartzman and David Schwartzman 2019, _The Earth is Not
for Sale: A Path Out of Fossil Capitalism to the Other World That is
Still Possible_. Singapore: World Scientific.

[4] George Monbiot 2019, The Problem Is Capitalism,
[link removed] [[link removed]] /2019/04/30/
the-problem-is-capitalism.

[5] Giorgos Kallis 2019, Socialism Without Growth. _Capitalism Nature
Socialism_ 30 (3): p.192.

[6] p.42, David Schwartzman and Salvatore Engel Di Mauro 2019, A
Response to Giorgios Kallis’ Notions of Socialism and
Growth, _Capitalism Nature Socialism_, 30 (3): 40-51.

[7] Giorgos Kallis 2019, Capitalism, Socialism, Degrowth: A
Rejoinder. _Capitalism Nature Socialism_ 30 (3): 266–272.

[8] Jason Hickel 2020, A response to Pollin and Chomsky: We need a
Green New Deal without growth,
[link removed]…
[[link removed]].

[9] David Schwartzman 2020, A Critique of Degrowth: an Ecosocialist
Alternative,
[link removed]…
[[link removed]].

[10] David Schwartzman 2021, Cuba and Degrowth?,
[link removed]
[[link removed]].

[11] Riccardo Mastini et al. 2020, For the Green New Deal to Work, It
Has to Reject “Growth”,
[link removed]…
[[link removed]].

[12] Juan Bordera and Fernando Prieto 2021, The IPCC considers
degrowth to be key to mitigating climate change (Google Translation
from Spanish), [link removed]
[[link removed]]
/IPCC-cambio-climatico-colapso-medioambiental-decrecimiento.htm.

[13] E.g., Robert Ayres 1998, Eco-thermodynamics: economics and the
second law. _Ecological Economics_ 26: 189–209.  

[14] Peter Schwartzman and David Schwartzman 2021, Can the 1.5 ℃
warming target be met in a global transition to 100% renewable
energy? _AIMS Energy _9 (6): 1170-1191, doi:10.3934/energy.2021054.

15] AGI nd, American Geosciences Institute. How does recycling save
energy? [link removed]…
[[link removed]],
most recent reference: 2019.

[16] John Bellamy Foster et al. 2021, Against Doomsday Scenarios: What
Is to Be Done Now? _Monthly Review _73 (7): p. 10.

[17] Data sources for Italy: BP 2021, p.10;
[link removed] [[link removed]].

[18] UNDP for 2019,
[link removed]
[[link removed]].

[19]  John Bellamy Foster et al. 2021. p.12.

[20] John Bellamy Foster et al. 2021. p.14.

[21] Jason Hickel 2018, Why growth can’t be green,
[link removed]
[[link removed]].

[22] E.g., Arnulf Grubler et al. 2018, A low energy demand scenario
for meeting the 1.5 °C target and sustainable development goals
without negative emission technologies. _Nature Energy _3: 515-527;
Lorenz T. Keyßer and Manfred Lenzen 2021, 1.5 °C degrowth
scenarios suggest the need for new mitigation pathways. Na_ture
Comm. _12: 2676, doi.:10.1038/s41467-021-22884-9.

[23]  John Bellamy Foster et al. 2021. p.14-15.

[24] David Schwartzman 1996, Solar Communism. S_cience & Society_ 60
(3): 307–331.

[25}Matt Huber 2020, Electric Communism: The Continued Importance of
Energy to Revolution. In: _Lenin150 (Samizdat), _Hjalmar Jorge
Joffre-Eichhorn (ed.) Hamburg, Germany: KickAss Books, pp.187-199.

[26] David Schwartzman 2020, An Ecosocialist Perspective on Gaia 2.0:
The Other World That is Still Possible. _Capitalism Nature
Socialism, _31(2): 40–49.

[27] John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark 2021, The
Capitalinian. _Monthly Review _73 (4): 1-16.

_David W. Schwartzman writes on solar energy. He is Professor
Emeritus, Howard University (USA), and a member of the Green Party of
the USA and other community organisations. His writing is available on
the Solar Utopia [[link removed]] and The Earth is Not for
Sale [[link removed]] web sites._

_CLIMATE & CAPITALISM is an ecosocialist journal, reflecting the
viewpoint of ecological Marxism.  Climate & Capitalism is part of
the Monthly Review group of socialist websites: MONTHLY REVIEW
[[link removed]]; MR ONLINE [[link removed]]; MR
PRESS [[link removed]]; and MICHAEL YATES
[[link removed]]. We are editorially
independent— MR has no responsibility for our content, and vice
versa — but we share technical resources and collaborate on common
projects._

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