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China is due to release GDP data for the first quarter of the year tomorrow, offering the greatest insight yet into what the effect of the coronavirus pandemic has been on the country’s economy. Predictions, naturally, are far from bright.
China isn’t alone here. The coronavirus pandemic has forced governments worldwide to reckon with recession or, as some pundits predict, depression. But not all economists see a decline in GDP as an inherently bad thing.
“I find it in a sense very disappointing that we cannot even fathom or imagine an economy where we produce less in a particular year,” says Giorgos Karris, an economist at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) and author of Degrowth—an economic critique.
Degrowth, according to Karris, is a critique of the belief that perpetual growth is necessary or feasible. Degrowth, as a conceptual alternative to growth, advocates a decline in both production and consumption and a reassessment of what factors we consider vital to prosperity. As Kallis says, degrowth is “a qualitative and quantitative change of the economy.”
It’s the quantitative component that separates degrowth from the sustainable growth model that industries are already trending towards. Sustainable, or “green,” growth assumes that productivity will continue to rise; degrowth says eventually expansion must stop and even retreat. How to manage that retreat is the issue many governments are struggling with now.
“In a situation like the current crisis, we really need to have an answer for how to manage an economy that doesn’t produce more than it did the year before for two years or, even, longer,” Karris says.
In the scramble to prop up economies during the coronavirus pandemic, numerous governments have implemented measures straight from the degrowth playbook. Government-issued wage support—such as the U.S. stimulus checks—is one tenet of a degrowth economy.
The provision of a basic income shows that not everyone needs to work in order to survive, degrowthers say. However, currently those checks are being issued as an emergency measure. Whether and how that support can be sustained is unclear.
“We don’t really have a familiar architecture for how that will work for the long term in a big economy,” says Tim Jackson, author of Prosperity Without Growth. However the post-pandemic landscape will give governments the opportunity to find out, with countries like Spain already planning to extend a universal basic income beyond the crisis.
Elsewhere in Europe and around the world people are urging governments to invest in renewable energy and other climate-conscious projects to facilitate a green recovery. Meanwhile the governments are deciding which industries are essential and worthy of saving.
“In a way, that’s an easy win for implementing a different way of thinking about the economy,” Jackson says. “The coronavirus has shifted our perspective on what really matters.”
More below.
Eamon Barrett
Eamon.Barrett@fortune.com
CARBON COPY
Go forth and multiply
Research shows that increased biodiversity could help prevent future pandemics by fostering ecosystems where zoonotic viruses, such as COVID-19, never reach critical mass and “spillover” into the human world. The human impact on natural ecosystems has resulted, primarily, in the loss of larger predators. That allows smaller creatures with high fertility rates and short life spans to propagate and breed novel viruses. Bloomberg
Damming behavior
Research from an American duo shows that a record-breaking drought suffered by South Asian countries along the Mekong River was caused by damming activities in China, where the Mekong begins. In February China Foreign Minister Wang Yi had told Laotian farmers that China shared in their hardship and was suffering a drought too; satellite data from the report shows water from the Mekong was actually being retained in China, suggesting the record low river levels seen in Laos and Cambodia were caused by China. New York TImes
All at sea
China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment is currently without a Minister, after Beijing transferred the previous head to an administrative role in Shandong province last week. China has appointed Sun Jinlong as new Party chief to the department this week but hasn’t confirmed who will be the civil servant to pick up the mantel of Minister. Caixin
Renewables to the front
In other China news, the National Energy Administration released a draft of the new China Energy Law—a bill that aims to unify current disparate energy laws, which govern fossil fuels and renewables separately. The draft law, which is open for consultation until May, reportedly prioritizes the use of renewables and categorizes hydrogen power as energy source for the first time. Caixin
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Coronavirus should inspire businesses to prepare their supply chains for the future by John Chambers
The coronavirus pandemic may be a turning point for responsible business by Paul Polman
A medical giant is sharing its ventilator designs. Will that change anything? by Jeff John Roberts
The ‘green death’ movement: Scientific advances give more eco-friendly funeral options by Emily Gillespie
IBM’s Ginni Rommety on the urgent need to reskill workers Leadership Next
For boom-bust oil towns, coronavirus is a very different kind of crisis by Katherine Dunn
CLOSING NUMBER
80 million
Scientists have confirmed that a prolonged heatwave caused the dramatic melting of an arctic ice sheet last summer. The Greenland ice sheet shed 197 gigatons of surface ice in July alone, equivalent to 80 million Olympic size swimming pools, but the heatwave lasted for 63 of the total 92 summer days. Between 1981 and 2010, the area of high pressure only lasted an average 28 days. If future years see similar prolonged arctic heat, melt rates could be twice as high as current predictions expect.