Download Sustainable welfare - Lund University Publications

Prof Max Koch, Lund University ([email protected])
Climate Change, Sustainable Welfare and
Eco-social Policies
• Climate change and the social sciences
• Policy responses I: Irrational optimism and green
growth
• Policy responses II: Degrowth and sustainable
welfare
• Eco-social policies
Climate change and the social sciences
• Arrhenius (1895): Link between the burning of fossil fuels
with far-reaching change in the climate
• IPCC (2014): Carbon emissions have been constantly
rising since the Industrial Revolution. Planet is on course
for a temperature rise of 2-5 degrees Celsius by 2100
• Direct and indirect risks: Heat-waves, forest fires, rising
sea levels, disruptions of energy and food supplies, mass
migration, weakening of global governance;
unprecedented levels of conflict (Stern, Giddens)
• Social sciences can help understand climate change as a
social issue by focusing on those social structures that
prevent policy-makers from acting
Structural tensions between capitalist growth,
environmental limits and the carbon cycle (Marx)
• Exchange value: Reduces concrete works as well as matter
and energy to repositories of abstract labour; regards land,
raw materials and fuels as ‘free gifts’ from nature and
sources of rents; tends towards an infinite expansion of
scale to produce more exchange value / capital
• Use value: Bound up with rearranging matter and energy;
expansion of scale translates into increasing throughput of
raw materials and auxiliaries; accompanied by degradation
of environment and increase in greenhouse gas emissions
• Tensions are managed and regulated differently in
different capitalist growth strategies (Koch 2012)
Ian Gough’s three scenarios for governments’ to
cope with CC:Irrational optimism, green growth
and degrowth
• Irrational optimism (Republican circles): Faster GDP
growth will equip future generations to deal with CC
through mainly adaptation (deregulated drilling for oil,
Carbon Capture and Storage)
• Green growth (most EU countries): States set targets to
reduce energy and material costs and the West’s reliance
on the fragile geopolitics of energy supply. Decoupling of
economic growth and carbon emissions through greening
of economy (carbon markets as main policy instrument)
Green growth and social policy: Welfare regimes
and ecological sustainability
- Gough and Meadowcroft see social-democratic welfare
states as better placed to manage the intersection of social
and environmental policies than liberal welfare regimes
(ecological modernisation discourse, green growth)
- Socio-economic and ecological values are seen as
mutually reinforcing: ‘Synergy’ hypothesis
- Theoretical alternative is to regard the green dimension of
the state in competition and conflict with its welfare
dimension
Operationalising welfare and ecology dimensions
for 28 European countries (1995 and 2010)
1. Welfare: Decommodification: Overall expenditure for
social protection as % of GDP; stratification: Income
Inequality, GINI Index
2. Ecology: Performance: Electricity generated from
renewable sources as % of gross electricity consumption;
CO2 emissions per capita, National Ecological Footprints
Regulation: Environmental taxes as % of GDP, public
expenditures for environmental protection as % of GDP
• Sources: EUROSTAT, OECD, Worldbank, Global
Footprint Network
Koch, M & Fritz, M 2014, Building the
Eco-Social State: Do Welfare Regimes
Matter?Journal of Social Policy 43 (4)
Correspondence analysis: Positional Changes of Countries in the
λ =0.077
Eco-social Field
(21.5%)
2
ECOLOGY +
SE95
SE10
WELFARE +
DK10
AT10
NO95
FR95
AT95
FI95
DK95
NO10
CH95 PT10
0.5
SI95
PT95
TR10
FI10
SI10
IT10
DE95
NL10
ES10
FR10
ES95
BG95
DE10
IT95
EL10
UK95
TR95
CH10
EL95
SK95
RO95
LV95
LV10
0.5 SK10
λ 1 =0.148
(41.6%)
RO10
HU10
IE10
BG10
BE10
NL95
HU95
BE95
LT95
UK10
IE95
CZ10
EE10
PL10
LT10
CZ95
LU95
PL95
ECOLOGY -
WELFARE -
LU10
EE95
Results
- No quasi-automatic development of the green
state on top of already existing welfare
institutions: Representatives of social-democratic
welfare regimes are spread across established,
emerging, failing and deadlocked eco-states
- Social welfare and sustainability has nowhere
been sufficiently, that is absolutely, decoupled
from GDP growth
- Dialectics of welfare state: Same mechanisms that
defuse inequality enable the leading of
ecologically harmful lifestyles
Sustainability, Inclusion and Quality of Life relative to GDP/capita:
A Global perspective (Fritz and Koch, Global Environmental Change 38, 2016)
Ecolog. Sustainability
Material
CO2
standard of
emisliving (GDP per sions in
capita, constant tons per
$ per year,
capita
purchasing
power parity
(ppp))
Ecological
footprint
of production in
global ha
per capita
Ecological
footprint of
consumption in
global ha
per capita
Social Inclusion
Gini
Index for
income
inequality
Homicide
rates per
100,000
persons
Democracy
Index
Quality of Life
Freedom Life
House
ExpecIndex
tancy
Literacy
Rates
Subjective
Wellbeing
‘Poor’ (below
3200$;n=32; e.g.
Chad, Uganda)
0.2
1.2
1.3
41.1
8.3
4.0
2.5
58.9
58.3
4.2
1.7
1.8
1.8
41.6
13.2
5.1
3.1
68.6
84.8
5.1
4.4
2.6
2.8
42.0
9.8
5.4
3.3
73.0
92.6
5.4
9.8
5.6
5.3
32.2
2.8
7.8
5.5
79.0
98.8
6.5
18.2
6.7
7.1
37.2
1.4
5.5
3.2
78.8
95.5
7.0
‘Developing’
(3200-11000$;
n=33; e.g.
Ghana, Nigeria,
Bolivia, Ecuador)
‘Emerging’
(11000-21500$;
n=33; e.g.
Argentina,
China, Romania,
Venezuela)
‘Rich’ (2150050000$; n=32;
e.g. Australia,
Denmark,
Sweden, Japan,
Germany)
‘Over-
developed’
(+ 50000 $; n=8;
e.g. Qatar,
Kuwait, Norway,
Switzerland)
Degrowth (D’Alisa et al. 2014)
• Bringing the global matter and energy throughput in line
with the capacity of the Earth’s ecosystems
• Redistributing wealth and income globally to eradicate
absolute poverty
• Emphasis on quality of life (free time, conviviality) rather
than quantity of consumption
• Encouragement of self-reflection, balance, creativity,
flexibility, diversity, good citizenship, generosity, and
non-materialism
• Equity, participatory democracy, respect of human rights,
respect for cultural differences
Downscaling towards a Stable State Economy
(Daly)
• Aims at the lowest feasible matter and energy throughput
in production and consumption and a relatively stable
population
• While carrying capacities of the earth are not eroded, there
is space for culture and knowledge to develop
• To achieve a global SSE, throughput would need to
‘degrow’ in the global North, thereby opening up space
for GDP growth in the South, which would contribute by a
decrease in population growth (Martínez-Alier)
Sustainable welfare (Koch and Mont 2016)
• Welfare: normally conceptualised in socio-economic
terms of equity highlighting distributive issues within
growing capitalist economies
• Sustainable welfare: Making welfare theories, systems
and policies compatible with principles of environmental
sustainability
• Climate change as transnational and transgenerational
phenomenon requires the extension of the distributive
principles underlying existing welfare systems to include
those in other countries (universalisability) and future
generations (intertemporality)
Prioritising needs: Objective wellbeing
measure, compatible with sustainability goals
• Basic needs such as physical and mental health and
autonomy are non-negotiable: Failure to satisfy these
produces ‘serious harm’ (Gough)
• Universal: Do not vary over time and across cultures but
according to the ways societies satisfy these
• ‘Critical thresholds’ for the provision of human needs (and
wants) are to be constantly (re-)defined in light of the
advances of scientific and practical knowledge
• Degree to which more than human needs can be provided
on a limited planet and in intergenerational perspective is
an empirical question
Human needs (Doyal and Gough 1991)
Basic needs Universal intermediate needs
Culturally, socially
and locally specific
satisfiers
Physical and
mental
health
Nutritional food and clean water
Protective housing
Non-hazardous work environment
Non-hazardous physical environment
Safe birth control and child-bearing
Appropriate health care
Critical
autonomy
Secure childhood
Significant primary relationships
Physical security
Economic security
Appropriate education
Identified through best
available scientific
knowledge and
comparative
anthropological
knowledge in
numerous cultures,
sub-cultures, states
and political systems
(ability to make
informed
choices)
Needs-oriented degrowth research: The example of
nutritional food (Koch et al. 2017, Ecological
Economics 138)
• What are the environmental impacts of different
kinds of food production (conventional versus
organic farming methods)?
• How do the different forms compare in terms of
scale and land-use (need for agricultural land) to
feed everybody?
• Do such scenarios suggest particular diets (e.g.
vegetarian) over others (e.g. omnivorous ones)?
GHGs of organic vs. conventional agriculture
Organic agriculture emits 30% less
GHGs than conventional (Pimentel
et al. 2005)
100
80
60
40
20
0
organic
conventional
Can we feed the world with 100% organic food?
Organic farming produces lower yields than
conventional agriculture (19-34% less food)
100
80
60
40
20
0
organic (Seufert et al 2012)
organic (Poniso et al. 2015)
conventional
Greater scale of organic food production suggests a less
omnivorous diet: 1. GHG emissions would fall (Tilman &
Clarke 2014)
2. A 25% decrease of meat consumption would lead to a
15% minor need for agricultural land by 2030 (Wirsenius et
al 2010)
• Some evidence for relative decoupling (ecological
intensity per unit of economic output) but not for absolute
decoupling (absolute decline in resource impacts)
• With 0.7% population growth and 1.4% income growth
the average carbon content of economic output would
need to improve 21-fold by 2050, relative to 2007
• If 9 billion people are to have an income of EU citizens
today, the world economy would need to grow 6 times by
2050. Achieving the IPCC targets by 2050 would mean
pushing down the global carbon intensity of economic
output by 9% every year
Temporary conclusion and social policy challenges
• Human need for food: A gradual transition to a vegetarian
diet would not only be more sustainable than omnivorous
ones, it would also feed a larger population (given
constant land-use)
• Social policies are necessary to bring about a ‘radically
different environmental/welfare policy regime’ and a
‘redistribution of carbon, work/time and income/wealth’
(Gough) at international (where a new global deal not
unlikely the Bretton Woods agreements would be
necessary), national and local levels
The ‘double injustice’ (Walker, Büchs)
• More or less ambitous climate targets have distributive
consequences and implications for social justice: Different
social groups have different responsibilities for CC and
suffer different impacts that may work in opposite ways
• How do burdens of climate policies relate to household
incomes? Are such burdens proportional to the impact on
the environment of different lifestyles? How can CC and
social policies be designed such that unjust distributional
effects are avoided?
Developing eco-social policies (at local, national
and European levels)
Climate
policies
Distributional
dilemmas
Countervailing
social policies
ECO-SOCIAL
POLICIES
(As yet) fragmented countervailing social policies in discussion:
- identification of minimum and maximum income limits / taxation;
- working time policies;
- housing;
- transport and mobility;
- carbon rationing including personal allowances and trading schemes
Conclusion
• Climate change and related ecological threats are serious
socio-ecological issues that are unlikely to go away in the
near future
• Weak evidence for absolute decoupling of material
resource use, carbon emissions and GDP/capita, and for
the Green Growth policy response, suggests more
theoretical and empirical efforts into how economies and
societies may develop without growth
• Huge potential for social policy scholars to contribute,
especially through the development of eco-social policies
Many thanks! Some related publications:
•
Koch M 2012 Capitalism and Climate Change: Theoretical Analysis, Historical Development and Policy
Responses, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
•
Koch M 2013 Welfare after growth: Theoretical discussion and policy implications International Journal of
Social Quality 3 (1)
•
Koch M 2014 Climate change, carbon trading and societal self-defence, Real-world Economics Review 67
•
Koch M and Fritz M 2014 Building the eco-social state: Do welfare regimes matter? Journal of Social
Policy 43 (4)
•
Fritz M and Koch M 2014 Potentials for prosperity without growth: Ecological sustainability, social Inclusion
and the quality of life in 38 Countries Ecological Economics 108
•
Koch M 2015 Capitalism, climate change and Degrowth strategies towards a global steady state economy,
International Critical Thought 5 (4)
•
Koch M and Mont O 2016 (eds) Sustainability and the Political Economy of Welfare, London: Routledge.
•
Fritz M and Koch M 2016 Economic development and prosperity patters around the world: Structural
challenges for a global steady state economy Global Environmental Change 38
•
Koch M, Gullberg AT, Schoyen M and Hvinden B 2016 Sustainable welfare in the EU: Promoting
synergies between climate and social policies Critical Social Policy 36 (4)
•
Koch M, Buch-Hansen H and Fritz M 2017 Shifting priorities in Degrowth research: An argument for the
centrality of human needs Ecological Economics 138
•
Büchs M and Koch M 2017 Postgrowth and Wellbeing, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (in press)