Tag: degrowth

  • How Is Wealth Distribution Related to Climate Change?

    Wealth inequality and climate change are intertwined consequences of unchecked capitalist growth and the monopolization resources.

    These two issues create a compounding effect: as the wealthy accumulate more wealth, their investments and purchases tend to generate more greenhouse gas emissions, which accelerates climate change and further exacerbates inequality.

    Photo by Elyse Chia on Unsplash

    Disproportionate Emissions

    Greenhouse gas emissions from both consumption and investments among the wealthiest groups have a vastly disproportionate impact on the climate crisis.

    At the individual level, the ultra wealthy lead high emitting lifestyles through energy intensive consumption patterns that include things like travel, luxury goods, and ownership of large homes—often owning multiple properties which contributes to higher emissions.

    For example, Jeff Bezos’ two private jets spent nearly 25 days in the air over a 12-month period and emitted as much carbon as the average US Amazon employee would in 207 years according to a 2024 OXFAM report.

    Affluent groups not only consume more and purchase emissions intensive goods but their assets and investments are also funneled into emission-intensive sectors such as fossil fuels, mining, real estate and construction. Industries such as real estate and costruction are especially emissions-intensive because they rely on concrete and steel—materials with enormous quantities of embodied carbon. These investments generate considerable returns, widening the wealth gap, while also producing massive carbon footprints. 

    A 2025 study analyzing emissions inequality from1990-2020 found that two-thirds of warming can be attributed to the wealthiest 10%, with average emissions 6.5 times higher than the average per capita rate. To further put this disparity into perspective, a 2024 OXFAM report found that the world’s fifty richest billionaires produce more carbon through their investments, private jets, and yachts in just 90 minutes than the average person emits in an entire lifetime.

    How Does Capitalism Influence Wealth Inequality?

    A foundational critique of capitalism is its ability to concentrate economic gains among owners while workers receive only a fraction of the value they create. This surplus extraction has intensified with globalization and automation, leading to stagnant wages and declining worker power— trends widely documented by economists at the Economic Policy Institute and the OECD.


    Under this model, wealth breeds more wealth: those with capital can invest and earn higher returns than those relying on wages, compounding inequality over time. This self-reinforcing dynamic is now supported by econometric evidence showing that every increase in wealth concentration significantly exacerbates carbon inequality—meaning the environmental footprint of the richest grows much faster than the average individual.


    Research from the World Inequality Lab reveals that public policies often serve to perpetuate these divides, especially when they favor interest of wealth holders through tax breaks, deregulation, and subsidies that disproportionately benefit capital owners.​

    At its foundation, capitalism prioritizes endless economic growth while disregarding planetary boundaries. Corporate interests drive extraction, pollution, and emissions as structural features of the system.​

    Why Capitalism and Climate Justice Can’t Coexist

    Capitalism perpetuates climate change by embedding exploitation of people, land, and resources into its design. The wealth gaps created by this system ensure those least responsible for the climate crisis bear the greatest impacts, both nationally and globally.

    Within the United States, capitalist production has created stark patterns of environmental injustice. Many of the most polluted areas are home to low-income communities who face the externalized costs of corporate profit. In Bakersfield, CA —one of three California metro areas with the largest increases in concentrated poverty from 2010-2018 —is surrounded by oil fields, intensive agriculture, and industrial zones. Weak enforcement of pollution controls enables business owners to cut costs and increase profits, while residents experience higher rates of asthma, contaminated water, and degraded air quality.

    On a global scale, capitalism’s colonial and imperial roots continue to shape climate injustice. Wealthy nations such as the United States and members of the European Union account for the majority of historical greenhouse gas emissions, shaping climate impacts felt by countries who have significantly lower GHG footprints and GDP’s. The wealth that fueled industrialization in the Global North was extracted through centuries of resource theft, forced labor, and ecological destruction in colonized regions.

    This legacy persists today through global trade structures, debt systems, and extractive industries that keep poorer nations dependent and vulnerable. Countries with the smallest carbon footprints now face the greatest exposure to extreme heat, sea-level rise, and food insecurity—while former colonial powers maintain economic dominance built on ecological harm and human exploitation.

    Calls for climate reparations and responsibility recognize the disproportionate contribution of wealthy, historically colonial nations to the climate crisis.​ Addressing the climate crisis requires not only reducing emissions but confronting the capitalist structures that have normalized extraction, inequality, and ecological violence in pursuit of endless growth.

    Solutions: Anti-Capitalist Degrowth Models

    The interconnected crises of inequality and climate change cannot be solved within the same economic system that created them. Incremental reforms  through green growth models or corporate sustainability pledges merely tinker at the margins of a structure built on exploitation. As thinkers like Kohei Saito and Jason Hickel argue, confronting climate breakdown requires a radical reorientation of our economies away from endless accumulation and toward collective well-being.

    Degrowth provides a vision for reorganizing society around equity, and care. Under degrowth frameworks, economic success is measured not by GDP, but by metrics such as community health, ecological restoration, access to essential services, and time for leisure and creativity. The goal is to downscale unnecessary production—particularly luxury consumption and resource-intensive industries—while ensuring that everyone’s fundamental needs are met within planetary boundaries.

    Ownership and control are central. If the wealthiest individuals and corporations dominate the financing of renewable energy and climate adaptation, their share of global wealth will continue to grow, deepening inequality even in a decarbonized world. Conversely, public, cooperative, and community-owned models demonstrate how climate action can redistribute both power and resources.

    Degrowth also challenges the colonial logic of extraction that still shapes global trade. It calls for ecological reparations, debt cancellation, and the end of exploitative resource flows from the Global South to the Global North. In practice, this means investing in ecosystem restoration, housing cooperatives, and localized supply chains rather than fossil-fuel expansion and militarized borders.

    The climate crisis is not an unintended consequence of capitalism—it is the inevitable outcome. Addressing it means redistributing wealth and transforming how we define prosperity, progress, and justice. Dismantling capitalist growth imperatives is not merely an economic task, but a moral and ecological one: a necessary step toward a livable planet for all.

  • The Illusion of Green Growth: Why Degrowth is a Necessary Path to Sustainability

    Many climate scientists, environmental activists, and researchers, including myself, now reject green growth models, not because of an opposition to progress or innovation, but because the promises of “green growth” in already high-income countries are fundamentally incompatible with the scale of ecological and social challenges present across the globe.

    This preference toward degrowth is rooted in mounting scientific evidence, supported by a recent groundbreaking review published in Lancet Planetary Health titled “Post-growth: the science of wellbeing within planetary boundaries,” which challenges the assumption that economic growth is necessary or even desirable for societal progress.

    Photo by Shelley Johnson on Unsplash

    A central argument made by the authors is that the dominant narrative, which claims technological innovation and efficiency will allow for continued economic growth while reducing environmental harm, is not supported by the data. Efficiency improvements are consistently outpaced by the scale and speed of economic expansion, leading to increased resource consumption, pollution, and waste—a phenomenon known as the “rebound effect.” This effect directly undermines the idea that growth can be decoupled from environmental harm.

    The belief that technological solutions alone can address today’s ecological crises exposes the use of binary thinking to address a multifaceted problem. This technological optimism can distract from the deeper, systemic changes needed to address how societies produce, consume, and define prosperity. Overreliance on technological solutions risks obscuring the fundamental drivers of climate change and social inequality. While technological shifts and innovation will play a role, it cannot substitute for the deeper structural changes needed to address how societies produce, consume, and define prosperity.

    Research shows that market-driven approaches and the current economic system delay effective climate action by hindering the deployment of transformative technologies. Many promising climate innovations struggle to secure funding or scale because profit-driven systems tend to prioritize short-term returns over long-term societal and environmental benefits. Ironically, green growth models also rely on rapid technological deployment as a climate solution, while many proposed solutions are either unproven at scale or insufficient to address the magnitude of the problems.

    Moreover, renewable energy and other sustainable technologies are not without environmental and social costs. The extraction of minerals essential for batteries and electronics, such as cobalt and lithium, is frequently linked to environmental degradation and human rights violations. This is not to suggest that clean energy should be dismissed, but rather that its deployment must be accompanied by systemic reforms. Without broader economic and policy changes, such technologies risk perpetuating existing patterns of overconsumption, social inequalities and human rights violations.

    Crucially, the pursuit of endless economic growth is fundamentally incompatible with the Earth’s ecological boundaries. Humanity has already exceeded six of nine planetary boundaries, threatening the stability of Earth’s life-support systems. The drive for economic expansion, especially in high-income countries, is largely responsible for this overshoot, often achieved at the expense of labor and resources in lower-income nations. High-income countries, in particular, have a disproportionate impact on global emissions and resource use, and their current levels of consumption are unsustainable. If these consumption patterns persist, they are likely to precipitate ecosystem collapse and irreversible climate impacts across the globe. To avert ecological catastrophe and biodiversity loss, high-income countries must significantly reduce their material and energy use.

    Green growth strategies tend to prioritize harm reduction through technological innovation and decarbonization, while neglecting the restorative practices needed to regenerate ecosystems.Even when labeled as “green,” economic growth models frequently fail to deliver meaningful social or ecological outcomes due to the fact that market-driven interventions often neglect ecosystem restoration that is viewed as “non-profitable”. A shift in priorities is needed—from GDP growth to enhancing human well-being, equity, and ecological regeneration.

    True sustainability requires a deliberate reduction in material throughput, regeneration of depleted ecosystems, and advancement of social equity.  It is not enough to simply shift to “greener” forms of production and consumption if they still enable the exploitation and oppression of nature and non-dominant groups.

    As highlighted in recent research published in The Lancet Planetary Health, degrowth offers a scientifically grounded pathway to remain within planetary boundaries while improving health and well-being (Beyer et al., 2024). By intentionally reducing overall consumption and production—particularly in high-income countries—and reorienting economies toward equity, social cohesion, and ecological restoration, we can address the root causes of environmental degradation and social inequality.

    The Lancet article emphasizes that degrowth is not about austerity or deprivation, but about prioritizing human flourishing, reducing unnecessary work and consumption, and ensuring that everyone’s basic needs are met. This approach has the potential to lower pollution, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and restore ecosystems, while also improving life satisfaction, reducing stress, and strengthening community ties.

    These findings point the way toward a healthier planet, fairer societies, and a higher quality of life for all—achieved not through endless economic expansion, but through a fundamental transformation of our values, priorities, and systems. It’s time to embrace a new vision of progress—one rooted in ecological balance, equity, and genuine well-being.

  • Integrating the Circular Economy and Degrowth to End Capitalism’s Harm

    The Majority of Americans Agree: Capitalism Is Failing Us—Here’s a Solution to Restore Equity and Heal Our Ecosystems

    Photo by Caroline S.

    As capitalistic growth models continue to fuel climate change and the sixth mass extinction, with 30,000 species going extinct each year, animal and plant life is declining across the globe at rates never seen before in human history.

    Under this system, workers are paid less than the full value of their labor, while capitalists use their assets as collateral to generate more wealth, further exacerbating income disparities. The benefits of capitalism appear to serve only a small minority of Americans, and this group is becoming increasingly concentrated, with only top 0.1% seeing the largest increase in wealth share since 1990. 

    As of 2023, 62% of Americans believe that “our current form of capitalism is not working for the average American,” which is the highest percentage recorded in years of polling on this topic.

    Recognizing that the system is broken is only the first step. To address the impacts of capitalism, it is essential to identify alternatives that end systems of oppression, exploitation, and ecological destruction.

    A hybrid model combining the circular economy (CE) and degrowth offer a systemic alternative to capitalism which prioritizes environmental regeneration and social equity.

    The linear “take-make-waste” systems of the global north deplete finite resources and drive climate change. This model describes an unsustainable economic framework dominant in industrialized nations, where raw materials are extracted (take), transformed into goods (make), and discarded after use (waste). 

    The impacts of this linear model are systemic and far reaching, contributing to resource depletion and the acceleration of climate change. This is demonstrated by the fact that the global economy currently consumes resources 1.7x faster than the Earth regenerates them, depleting both finite and renewable resources.

    Additionally, this system exacerbates social inequalities as corporations are able to offload environmental harms onto marginalized communities and ecosystems.

    The structural incompatibility of capitalism and Earth systems is highlighted by the planetary boundaries framework, which defines nine critical thresholds for maintaining Earth’s stability—six of which have already been crossed—underscoring the contrast between capitalism’s reliance on perpetual economic expansion and the planet’s ecological limits.”

    Crossed planetary boundaries include land use change, biosphere integrity, and freshwater use which are all linked to unsustainable systems of production and consumption.

    Industrial animal agriculture is the primary driver of global deforestation with 50% of the Earth’s land surface dedicated to agriculture, of which 77% is used for livestock and land used for growing animal feed. Livestock production directly undermines biodiversity with over 60% of biodiversity loss linked to meat-centric diets.

    Industrialized agriculture not only plays a major role in crossing the land use change planetary boundary but also inflicts significant harm on farmed animals, disrupts the habitats of wildlife displaced by land use change, and displaces Indigenous communities, often through violent land grabs. This modern exploitation has roots in colonial-era actions, such as replacing diverse Indigenous farming with monocultures, which set the stage for today’s exploitation.

    Resource extraction has tripled in the past five decades, rising from 30 billion tonnes in 1970 to 106 billion tonnes, largely driven by high consumption in the Global North with the United States and European Union being responsible for 74% of global resource extraction from 1970-2017. The Global North extracts commodities valued at $2.2 trillion annually from the Global South, measured at Northern prices. This degrades the land and exploits labor in countries from which resources are extracted.

    This stress on Earth’s  systems  can be  connected to capitalism’s core mechanisms which create an existential need for growth as firms must continually expand profits to survive market competition. As Marx noted, capital accumulation is not optional—companies face “external coercive laws” to reinvest profits into growth or risk collapse.

    Additionally, markets incentivize overproduction (e.g., fast fashion, disposable tech) to sustain demand, accelerating resource extraction and waste. Therefore, growth and GDP as a  metric is favored over the wellbeing of nature and communities, leading to significant risks  such as the destabilization of Earth’s systems and irreversible tipping points.

    Alternative approaches to the current economic structure of the global north include the circular economy and degrowth models.

    The circular economy focuses on positive society-wide benefits based on three key principles:

    1. Eliminating waste and pollution
    2. Circulating materials
    3. Regenerating nature

    The circular economy model seeks to decouple economic activity from the consumption of finite resources, designing waste out of the system.

    The Circularity Gap Report found that “the 22.8 billion tonnes (Gt) of annual emissions associated with creating new products from virgin materials can be eliminated by applying circular strategies that drastically reduce the amount of minerals, fossil fuels, metals and biomass consumed by the world’s economy.”

    This reduction is achieved through various strategies including designing out waste and pollution from the outset of product creation, keeping products and materials in use for as long as possible, regenerating natural systems, promoting renewable energy adoption, and implementing closed-loop systems.

    In closed loop systems, materials and products are continuously recycled and reused which minimizes waste and the need for new raw materials. Additionally, products are designed for circularity which means that they can be easily disassembled, repaired, and recycled at the end of their life cycle.

    The degrowth economy prioritizes local economies, democracy and well-being over GDP by focusing on equitable downscaling of production and  consumption. This system is synergistic with the circular economy as the circular economy reduces resource demand, enabling degrowth’s vision of lower economic throughput.

    Key aspects of the degrowth model include:

    1. Rejecting GDP as a progress metric in favor of ecological and social indicators
    2. Addressing social inequalities arising from capitalism by promoting wealth distribution
    3. Advocating for universal basic services
    4. Emphasizing local production and decision-making
    5. Redefining work, including reduced working hours and valuing unpaid care work

    These aspects support an economic system that works in harmony with nature, reduces gender inequality by recognizing the value of care work, and promotes well-being.

    Integrating the circular economy and degrowth models offers a solution that could systemically transform our current, failing system of capitalistic growth. Under an integrated system of the circular economy and degrowth, governments could gradually decouple resource extraction from economic gain, and eliminate subsidies for fossil fuel industries, redirecting funds towards renewable energy and circular economy initiatives.

    The industrial shift towards design for longevity would encourage companies to create durable, repairable, and upgradable products, reducing waste and resource consumption. Mandating extended producer responsibility (EPR) policies would make manufacturers accountable for the entire lifecycle of their products, including disposal and recycling. These measures could drive innovation in product design and business models, fostering a shift towards more sustainable production practices.

    Unsustainable consumption patterns of our current system can also be addressed with this approach by promoting a cultural shift from consumerism to sufficiency. This involves redefining societal notions of success and well-being which could be supported by education and media campaigns that highlight the benefits of reduced consumption.

    Community initiatives such as local food production, renewable energy projects, and skill-sharing networks, embody both circular economy and degrowth principles. Scaling up and replicating successful community-led models with support from an integrated circular economy and degrowth system could accelerate broader societal shifts towards sustainability.

    Integrating the circular economy with the degrowth economy in western countries would also help address disparities between the Global South and the Global North which are further exacerbated by climate change. Technology transfer agreements, fair trade practices and more ethical methods of consumption and production under this model could help rebalance resource flows and economic opportunities.

    This integrated model could provide a framework for addressing historical injustices and current inequalities by guiding the redistribution of wealth and resources, and ensuring that the benefits of a sustainable economy are shared globally.  Under this model, international cooperation frameworks would place priority on equitable access to resources and sustainable development opportunities for all nations.

    Integrating circular economy and degrowth principles could provide a framework for addressing historical injustices and current inequalities. These models could guide the redistribution of wealth and resources, ensuring that the benefits of a sustainable economy are shared globally. Implementing the  circular economy paired with degrowth in international development projects could help create more resilient and equitable economic systems in the Global South.

    The integrated circular economy and degrowth model faces challenges including political resistance, implementation barriers, and counterarguments in favor of “green growth.”

    Powerful multinational corporations exert considerable influence on policy-making through lobbying efforts. These companies often prioritize profit maximization and market expansion, which can conflict with degrowth principles. Their lobbying activities may oppose regulations that limit resource extraction or consumption, advocate for policies that maintain the status quo of economic growth, or resist measures that could reduce their market share or profitability.

    Additionally, many established institutions in the Global North are fundamentally tied to the paradigm of continuous economic growth. For example, banks, pension funds, and other financial institutions are structured around the expectation of ongoing economic expansion which creates systemic barriers to implementing degrowth policies.

    Mainstream circular economy models are often framed as growth opportunities due to potential cost savings resulting from reducing virgin material use, job creation resulting from increased demand in remanufacturing and recycling sectors, and driving growth in the product-as-a-service business model.

    The worldwide revenue of circular economy transactions was estimated to total roughly $339 billion in 2022,and this is forecasted to more than double by 2026, reaching a $712 billion market opportunity. This ideation of a growth centric circular economy falls under the umbrella of green growth.

    Green growth aligns with neoliberal capitalism, emphasizing market-driven solutions (e.g., carbon pricing, green tech investments) and maintaining institutional trust in GDP as a progress metric.

    Green growth frameworks typically avoid addressing global inequalities, whereas degrowth explicitly calls for redistributing wealth and scaling down overconsumption in the Global North.

    A climate solution that does not address the interconnected social impacts causing and resulting from climate change is not, in fact, a solution, but a band-aid on a much larger problem.

    Degrowth proponents argue that circular strategies alone cannot resolve ecological crises if growth remains the goal. True sustainability demands reducing total consumption, not just optimizing efficiency. This includes policies like material caps, repair mandates, and bans on planned obsolescence.

    The combination of circular economy and degrowth principles offers a comprehensive approach to address the fundamental ecological and social shortcomings of capitalism including ecological and social failures.

    The integrated circular economy and degrowth model tackles resource depletion and waste through closed-loop systems and directly challenges the paradigm of endless economic expansion on a finite planet which has been proven to be unsustainable as demonstrated with the planetary boundaries framework.

    Additionally, this model advocates for wealth redistribution and redefining societal success metrics beyond GDP while promoting local production and repair economies which can reduce inequality.

    Together, these models propose a systemic redesign that:

    1. Replaces linear “take-make-dispose” economics with regenerative cycles.
    2. Shifts focus from quantitative growth to qualitative development and well-being.
    3. Prioritizes sufficiency and equitable resource distribution over profit maximization.

    The imperative to rapidly transition to these models is driven by internationally recognized climate targets, ecological tipping  points, inequality reduction, and resource scarcity.

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasizes that limiting global warming to 1.5°C requires “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” with the integrated circular economy and degrowth model offering pathways to drastically reduce emissions while maintaining quality of life.

    This model is able to address interconnected issues exacerbating the climate  crises that extend beyond emissions reduction  as circular economy principles can help restore degraded environments and manage limited resources with degrowth further supporting social equity, wellbeing, and ecological regeneration.