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Can economic growth continue without fossil fuels? The IPCC thinks so — here’s why its decarbonisation models are broken

August 16, 2017

Can economic growth continue without fossil fuels? The IPCC thinks so — here’s why its decarbonisation models are broken

(Source: VICE)

Published by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a crowdfunded investigative journalism project for people and planet. Support us to keep digging where others fear to tread.

In this third contribution to our symposium, ‘Pathways to the Post-Carbon Economy’, biophysical economist Graham Palmer assesses the plausibility of conventional economic forecasts of a global energy transition away from fossil fuels.

Most forecasts paint a rosy picture of continued, unimpeded economic growth, even as the world weans itself entirely off carbon-intensive energy sources. But are such scenarios really possible?

Palmer argues that they aren’t — not when we consider how the economy is fundamentally embedded in its biophysical environment. And if it isn’t, then we need a new approach to modelling, which pays greater attention the intimate relationship between energy, our societies, and their economies.

Climate change discourse is structured around competing narratives — degrowth, pro-renewables, pro-nuclear, localism, green business, techno-optimism, and so on. The energy scenario modelling by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a foundation for much of the discourse.

Integrated models are connected with socioeconomic and technological storylines to forecast a picture of key characteristics of future transformation pathways.

When we look at models from the most recent IPCC report (AR5), we see that that baseline scenarios project a 300% to 800% increase in GDP-per-capita by 2100. In these scenarios, strong mitigation is achieved with global consumption losses of only between 3 to 11% relative to baseline. Hence, the net-cost of decarbonising seems trivial over the long run.

From this perspective, the solution that follows is to put in place appropriate policies, support technology, remove fossil fuel subsidies and apply a modest but comprehensive carbon price.

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