At 1.2°C of current heating, human-induced climate breakdown has been wreaking havoc now on every continent. Science has been warning since the 1950s. Today, its impacts are unravelling ecosystems across the globe. This year alone, heat waves and an ongoing historical drought are ravaging South America; Europe and the Mediterranean region are bracing themselves for another drought. The Horn of Africa is facing a devastating 4th year of drought. Last year, record droughts also scorched the Global North while Pakistan, Nigeria and Australia faced record floods. 

Unfortunately, climate breakdown is only one of nine planetary boundaries, of which at least six have already been exceeded. Breaking these boundaries sets us on a path of rapidly approaching irreversible biogeophysical tipping points. We even can see cascading tipping points, where a tipping point accelerates another. With no chance to reverse our impact on Earth's systems, we won't be able to avoid further and increasing unfathomable death and destruction of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss.

At the same time, the global population is still growing and by 2050, energy demand is projected to be 47% higher than today and the demand of 12 different key minerals is set to increase six-fold. A global economy, growing at the current pace, will be 33% larger after 10 years. Moreover, our growth-based economy has been driving inequality between and within countries, which underlies the enormous disparities of energy and material use between the richest 1% and the rest of us.

This inequality lies at the heart of the climate emergency, as millionaires alone are set to use up 2/3 of the remaining +1.5°C carbon budget by 2050. On top of this, a growth-based economy in richer countries does not bring wellbeing nor happiness. 

The fantasy of ‘unlimited’ growth on a ‘limited’ planet stumbles on the fact that GDP growth is still 1:1 coupled to energy and material consumption, and  therefore leads to greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss. Every year we use more resources than those the Earth can regenerate. We have been consistently failing to decrease global emissions since the Paris Agreement. We are forced to ask how we return to the ‘climate safe zone’.

Fossil fuels account for over 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of all carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, a drastic phase-out of fossil fuels consumption is essential: transitioning to a low-carbon economy has been claimed to be the most important step to address the climate crisis. Yet, while renewable power capacity has increased exponentially during the last years, global carbon emissions keep increasing, reaching an all time high in 2022. 

The IPCC states that targeting a climate resilient, sustainable world now involves fundamental changes to how society functions. Recently, more than 1100 scientists and academics have urged public and private institutions, as well as civil society, to embrace a degrowth: a democratically planned, sustainable, climate safe and equitable downscaling of the economy, starting by the biggest historical carbon emitters. Degrowth seems to be essential to save us from a climate collapse of global proportions.

We therefore advocate for urgent measures to socially, ecologically and economically sustainably downscale of resource usage. The science is clear! The risks for everyone are overwhelming!https://degrowth.info/en/signatories-open-letter