“Carbon dioxide emitted by the top 10 percent of the world's richest people makes up half of worldwide emissions.”
From Kohei Saito's SLOW DOWN.
“On the other hand, the least wealthy half of the world's population is responsible for a mere 10 percent of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.”
One might be inclined to conclude that the answer may quite simply be to call on the rich to reduce their emissions, and the rich may even agree and conclude that the solution lies in greening the economy by shifting to renewable energy. Ain't that simple though:
“But we must also keep in mind the following: almost every one of us living in a developed country belongs to the world's richest 20 percent, and some of those who call themselves 'middle class' are actually part of the top 10 percent. In other words, it will be impossible to truly combat climate change if we fail to participate as directly interested parties in the radical transformation of the Imperial Mode of Living.”
Thing is though: a shift to renewables is by no means a transformation of the Imperial Mode of Living, given that renewable energy heavily relies on the utilization of lithium-ion battery technology, itself reliant on an exorbitant extraction of lithium and cobalt, which involves processes with severe environmental consequences, first on communities in the global south but inevitably upon the entire global ecosystem, all of which is detailed in Saito's book.
But the crux of Saito's argument is that even if that were not the case, “greening” the economy by cutting down CO2 emissions and utilizing renewable energy would not cause a reduction in consumption (it would likely even increase it), and as such would entail a continuation of the predatory resource extraction necessary to feed the current economic model and the consumerist lifestyles it fosters. CO2 emissions or not, exorbitant resource extraction spells the death of our planet.
“A team of environmental scholars headed by Australian professor Thomas Wiedmann has developed a calculation called the 'material footprint' (MF) to revise our understanding of the effects of international trade. The MF is a figure indexing the consumption of natural resources.”
The only solution then is the adoption of a different economic model altogether.
49 pages into SLOW DOWN, Saito hasn't gotten to that bit yet, but it's clear that's where he's headed. He takes his time giving us all the data and sound reasoning why not only our current mode of capitalism is doomed to fail, but why “Green New Deal”-like solutions are doomed to fail as well. Thus, paving the way for the only viable solution.
SLOW DOWN: The Degrowth Manifesto by Kohei Saito
