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2023 saw the publication of the “Report of the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss” as well as the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Actions “Report on the examination of recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly report on biodiversity loss”. At the IWT we were delighted to see many progressive solutions to the biodiversity crisis within the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly as well as the Joint Oireachtas Committee reports. It is vital that the government of Ireland act on these recommendations. This year we will be looking closer at some of the ideas in order to keep a focus on them. In this issue our guest writer Caroline Whyte is exploring the ideas of how we measure societal success in Ireland and the link with nature protection and restoration. Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
Written by Caroline Whyte
Printed in the Spring 2024 Issue of Irish Wildlife Magazine.
Readers of this magazine are probably aware that the richness and variety of our biodiversity is being severely depleted and undermined in Ireland and around the world. The biggest culprit in this, as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) describes it, is land use change, including “the conversion of land cover (e.g. deforestation or mining), changes in the management of the ecosystem or agro-ecosystem (e.g. through the intensification of agricultural management or forest harvesting) or changes in the spatial configuration of the landscape (e.g. fragmentation of habitats).”
Many experts argue that in order for biodiversity to be able to regenerate, we will need to impose binding limits on the consumption of certain resources, such as fossil fuels and mined minerals, and to extend the number of ‘no-go’ areas where resource extraction is not allowed at all. According to a 2020 academic article on biodiversity policy, ’the establishment—via multilevel governance—of absolute caps [limits] on the amount of resources embedded in imported goods and services is crucial’. It also proposes that there should be more “resource sanctuaries” where no extraction of resources is ever permitted, and that large infrastructure projects need to be scaled back in order to give nature enough space to thrive.
In a similar vein, the 2021 Dasgupta Review on the economics of biodiversity asserts that ‘in the face of significant risk and uncertainty about the consequences of degrading ecosystems, in many cases there is a strong economic rationale for quantity restrictions [e.g. absolute limits on resource use, and resource sanctuaries] over pricing mechanisms.’
There is a catch to these approaches, however: they will make some types of economic activity much harder to carry out, if not impossible. As a result, the overall level of national (and global) economic activity may well decline. In other words, we may no longer have economic growth – and indeed, we may even have an economic contraction.
Economic contraction is often assumed to be a terrible problem to be avoided at all costs, for reasons that I’ll describe below. The ‘solution’ to it that is routinely proposed by people in political circles and the media is that we should figure out how to decouple economic growth from environmental damage. In other words, we should transform our economic activity in such a way that we can continue to increase the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) while no longer disrupting ecosystems. This is frequently described as ‘green growth’. However, there is no convincing evidence that green growth would actually be possible at the scale, speed and definitiveness required to reverse biodiversity loss (or indeed, for that matter, climate disruption).
Both the Citizens’ Assembly and the Joint Oireachtas Committee’s (JOC) Report on Biodiversity Loss include some fairly strong language on economic growth. The Citizens’ Assembly has called for a move away from GDP growth as a goal in itself, and the JOC has stated that ‘our country’s progress should not be based solely on the narrow lens of economic growth, but instead should capture overall quality of life across health, environmental, social and economic areas.’
The European Environment Agency comments that “it is unlikely that a long-lasting, absolute decoupling of economic growth from environmental pressures and impacts can be achieved at the global scale; therefore, societies need to rethink what is meant by growth and progress and their meaning for global sustainability.” And the IPBES has also weighed in on this, implying that we should be “steering away from the current limited paradigm of economic growth.”
Indeed, two arguments can be made for such a steer. The first one, already described, is economic growth’s close connection with dangerous environmental impacts. The other argument is more about a lack of connection.
Can we have progress without growth?
It’s probably a good idea, at this point, to clarify exactly what is being referred to when we talk about ‘economic growth’. The term is often used interchangeably with ‘GDP growth’. GDP is the sum of all of the monetised economic activity in a country, and the GDP measurement is, in turn, closely related to Gross National Product (GNP), which was first devised by the economist Simon Kuznets in the mid-20th century. Kuznets also gave clear warnings about its limitations. He would surely turn in his grave if he saw how blithely it tends to be conflated with progress now.
A famous speech by Robert F Kennedy in 1968 sums up many of the problems with economic growth as a measure of success:
“Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product….counts air pollution…and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. … it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”
74% of people in the G20 group of nations – which includes the US, Russia, China and India – support the idea that their country’s economic priorities should move beyond profit and increasing wealth, and focus more on human wellbeing and ecological protection. Research endorses this view, indicating that beyond a certain minimum income that is needed to meet our basic needs, wealth’s correlation with happiness breaks down.
In spite of this, many influential economists, politicians and civil servants continue to have serious misperceptions about growth. For example, growth is often assumed to be necessary to achieve healthy levels of employment, and to sustain social spending and a welfare state. Indeed, the relationship between growth and abundant state coffers is frequently described as though it is an ironclad law of physics. And yet, where such a relationship does exist (which is not everywhere), the reasons for it are entirely political and cultural. It’s possible that a taxation system that targeted wealth and environmental impacts more than labour, along with a more diverse, balanced approach to economic production – especially in key sectors such as agriculture and transport – could achieve those same employment and welfare goals, and rather more efficiently than at present.
Examples of countries that are using measures of success other than GDP to help nature are Bhutan and Costa Rica. Conservation of the environment is one of the four pillars of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness philosophy. As mandated in its constitution, Bhutan preserves (at all times) 60 percent of its land under forest cover and more than 51% of the country is protected—the largest percentage of any Asian country.
Ways to help enable a shift to a growth-independent national and global economy are being researched by Feasta alongside a rapidly-expanding group of organisations around the world; ironically, our area of work is on a strong growth trajectory! If you’re interested in learning more and joining the vibrant discussion on moving towards a wellbeing, ‘post-growth’ economy that enables both humans and nature to flourish, please save the date for our ‘Rethinking Growth’ conference in Dublin on June 25 and 26 2024, which Feasta is co-hosting along with our colleagues in the Wellbeing Economy Ireland Hub. You can find more at https://www.rethinking-growth.ie.
About the author
Caroline Whyte has a background in ecological economics, and does research and advocacy for Feasta, the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability. She is an Environmental Pillar representative on the National Economic and Social Council, and is on the steering committees of Stop Climate Chaos and the Environmental Pillar. She is the author of a range of Feasta submissions to Irish and European official institutions and is a core member of the Wellbeing Economy Ireland Hub, in which Feasta takes a secretariat role.
References:
https://www.ipbes.net/models-drivers-biodiversity-ecosystem-change
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12713
Dasgupta Review Headline Messages, p3: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/final-report-the-economics- 3 of-biodiversity-the-dasgupta-review
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12713
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(23)00174-2/fulltext
https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/growth-without-economic-growth
https://www.ipbes.net/news/Media-Release-Global-Assessment
An explanation of the difference between GNP, GDP and GNI (a related metric which is often used in Irish economic statistics) can be found at: https://www.cso.ie/en/interactivezone/statisticsexplained/nationalaccountsexplained/grossnationalproductgnpandgrossnationalincomegni/
https://globalcommonsalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Global-Commons-G20-Survey-full-report.pdf
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1015962107
https://www.etui.org/publications/welfare-farewell
http://www.weall.org/ireland