Date: Wednesday 11th December, 2024 
Time: 7 to 8:30 PM

Here is the recording of the webinar:

Two sets of slides are also available to view:

This presentation features results from two publications (links below), addressing the lack of degrowth scenarios in the Integrated Assessment Modelling (IAMs) literature reported by the IPCC.

Empirical data increasingly shows that to achieve sufficiently rapid decarbonisation, high-income economies likely need to pursue degrowth policies, scaling down less socially necessary production and consumption, additionally to rapid deployment of renewables.

We modify one of the common IAMs – MESSAGEix – to make it compatible with degrowth scenarios. We simulate scenarios featuring low and negative economic growth in Australia. We achieve this by removing the model assumption that more consumption is always better from a utility perspective, thus allowing for the option of lower consumption being optimal. The outcomes from such modified scenarios reflect some characteristics of degrowth futures, including reduced aggregate production and declining energy and emissions. These results demonstrate the potential of degrowth scenarios to substantially reduce technological feasibility, sustainability and justice concerns. However, further work is needed to explore other key degrowth features.

Mengyu Li, on the left above, is a Horizon Fellow and Senior Lecturer with the ISA team in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney. She has a PhD in Power Engineering and experience in renewable grid modelling, integrated assessment, and carbon footprinting. Her current research interests focus on post-growth, degrowth and international equity. She currently leads the development of cloud-based collaborative-research platforms for building large-scale global economic-environmental models that enable environmental impact analysis across global supply-chain networks.

Lorenz Keyßer, on the right above, is a PhD candidate at the Institute of geography and sustainability, University of Lausanne, in Switzerland. Supervised by Prof. Julia Steinberger, he conducts research on economic growth imperatives and dependencies in the context of degrowth and post-growth theories. Earlier research supervised by Prof. Manfred Lenzen focused on modelling degrowth and post-growth climate mitigation scenarios.

Key Research Papers

Downscaling down under: towards degrowth in integrated assessment models
(https://doi.org/10.1080/09535314.2023.2301443)

Integrated assessment modelling of degrowth scenarios for Australia
(https://doi.org/10.1080/09535314.2023.2245544)

More Background Research Papers

• 1.5 °C degrowth scenarios suggest the need for new mitigation pathways
  (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22884-9)
• Urgent need for post-growth climate mitigation scenarios
  (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00884-9)
• Scientists’ warning on affluence
  (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y)

This webinar is co-sponsored by Our Climate Declaration, Degrowth Aotearoa New Zealand, The Wise Response Society, and Engineers for Social Responsibility.