Sustainability is about not infringing upon the future while delivering for those here now. The good news is that there isn’t necessarily a conflict between the two. Just because people get richer (current generation) doesn’t necessarily mean they need to do more damage to the future generations. Progress can happen without stealing from the future. Making the world a better place for all now shouldn’t be seen as ignoring the needs of the future. So how to make the world better?
Decoupling
Bringing up decoupling is a great way to start an argument. The basic idea of decoupling is that the world can get richer while being less environmentally harmful. There is good evidence that this has been occurring in some places in some ways. In recent years technology and behavior change have meant that many countries have got richer while sometimes doing less environmental damage.
This isn’t quite the entire story though. A reasonable question is whether things are getting better quickly enough. If populations grow, and more countries get rich can we still reduce emissions in total even if we are doing pretty well with emissions by head and compared to wealth? The good news is that there are reasons for some optimism covered in Ritchie’s book.
Optimism Assumes Action
The optimistic view that we can help people out of poverty while not wrecking the planet does require hard work. The reason why many things have got better is because action was taken. A great example is the ozone layer, we don’t talk about it much anymore because it got a lot better. But it didn’t just happen, people, and their countries, took steps to address the problem. If we want good things to happen we’ll have to put in the work.
The big question here is whether we can decouple these impacts fast enough. The answer to that depends on what actions we take today.
Ritchie, 2024, page 35
Ritchie offers several actions to take. For example, tackling the problem of externalities — where actions create consequences but not for the decision-maker. A carbon tax is an example of this, where those who use fossil fuels pay a little extra to help tackle the problems the fuel use causes.
The good news is that action on the environment doesn’t necessarily conflict with action on poverty. Poor people often use the dirtiest fuels. As they climb out of poverty they will be able to use cleaner fuels and renewables and we need to help them get access to the cleaner fuels and better technology.
How To Make World Better?
Pulling people out of poverty has to be central to our goal.
Ritchie 2024, page 296
The problem is not that we have too many people in the world. We currently produce enough food, and if we change our diets we will have even more surplus. We just need to get it to the people who need it. On food at least there are obvious ways the world can be improved even while having a population at least somewhat larger than we have.
Ritchie’s message is ultimately positive. It need not be climate action or economic growth. Still, it is important to remember that we need to work harder if we want to lower pollution, have better health, and still get a stronger economy.
For a few (mostly) positive views of the world see here, here, here, here, and here.
Read: Hannah Ritchie (2024) Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet, Hachette