Day 3 - Plenary 6
Gaël Giraud
'Why do we, economists, not understand the role of energy in the dynamics of our economy?'

'We have no way to understand interest rates, so why do we have flexible interest rates if we don't understand how they move?'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 3 - Plenary 6
Gaël Giraud

'In real life everyday a bank creates money'

'Money is not neutral, its creation is endogenous, and above all Money creation is not necessarily inflationary'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 3 - Plenary 6
Gaël Giraud

'We need to get rid of the fossil fuels assetes'

'by saying that inflation is the enemy, we have fostered unemployement'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 3 - Plenary 6
Gaël Giraud

'GDP is based on the idea that investments feed savings, National Income is based on the idea that savings feed investment. There is a huge political issue here'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 3 - Plenary 6
Valentina Bosetti
'We shouldn't merry one model, we should use the models that suit the problem'

'By producing these graphs, you start ask questions. Some of the trade offs only show if you make various models'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 3 - Plenary 6
Valentina Bosetti
'The importance of models that are created by different experts you start to create a language and a narrative that can come out only by this interdisciplinary approach'

Models are there not to give you a single answer, but to explore the future

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 3 - Plenary 6
Robert Costanza
'We need some kind of therapy because we are addicted to our current system'

'All models are wrong but some models are useful'

'We confuse the model with reality, we confuse the map with the territory'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 3 - Plenary 6
Robert Costanza
'Who would have thought that a book [The Limit to Growth] on system dynamics would have sold so many copies'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 3 - Plenary 6
Robert Costanza
'The future of wellbeing indicators: we need a more system dynamic model that replace the static accounting one'

'We can build a broad consensus of what sustainability indicators are and use broader datasets'

Steps forward:

- break our addiction to growth at all costs
- a therapy of a broadly shared vision where we all want to go
- we need a movement that will make that vision real

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth '

Day 3 - Plenary 6
Ann Pettifor

'we would like our politicians to have more spine'

Gaël Giraud
'We need to shift from 'university' to 'pluriversity''

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 3 - Plenary 6
Sirpa Pietikäinen
'Let's overthrow the conservative parties'

Robert Constanza
'We are talking about an improvement of people lives, so we really need this vision to be clear'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Plenary 6 closed. I missed the beginning but I guess I arrived just in time.
Interestingly yesterday I was having a conversation about #neutrality both at home and here with @aral , and I was very pleased to hear today about the false belief that money is neutral, therefore bank are independent because money doesn't influence fiscal policy (I mean, who really believes that?).
Finance & macroeconomics aren't my best, but that was really a good session.
See you in a bit for the closing plenary

While waiting for the closing plenary to start, I am reflecting a lot on the concept of 'university' vs 'pluriversity'. The concept of the 'pluriverse' is where all my work as a designer and as a researcher is rooted, but I never thought on how 'university' as a term keeps being rooted in an universalistic idea of knowledge, and that real inclusive and diverse academia should probably get rid of them and embrace 'pluriversity' as its main institution.

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Tim Jackson
'This is the myth of our time, the myth of growth'

'And now that myth has become dangerously unravelled'

'How can imagining a post-growth world help us?'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Tim Jackson

'This rejection of limits is a massive cultural blind spot'

'It leaves us profoundly unsatisfied'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Tim Jackson
'Adaptation is often a far more creative response to limit'

'Limits are the gateway to the limitless'

'To make progress we need to revisit the definition of prosperity'

'Health is about balance between efficiency and excess'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Tim Jackson

'Without care we are nothing'

'The care economy is the blueprint for the new world'

'Capitalism externalising the burden of care in the same way it externalise nature'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Tim Jackson
'Growth is unsustainable, but the world beyond growth is frightening'

'The antidote to despair lies not in hope, but in action'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Dominique Meda
'We need to get out from the cognitive framework started with modernity'

She is presenting an European plan proposed by Sicco Mansholt and that, despite already tackling most of the topic we are discussing in this conference, and it was completely shunned by his fellow politicians and attacked by the press.

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Dominique Meda
'The Green Deal is the just the start'

'Thank you to these 3 days we are starting to share a culture'
(personal note: as a scholar of cultures, I couldn't be happier for this last remark 🥰)

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Esther Lynch

'I begin by thanking all trade unions out there because they are on the frontlines of this struggle'

'Social dialogue and the involment of workers and their trade unions is essential for a successful transition to a beyond growth economy'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Esther Lynch

'Workers aren't widgets. Our message is clear: that can't be any return to austerity'

'Who is driving inflation? Is not working people'

'It is not right that somebody can go to the moon for a weekend and paying so little taxes'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Esther Lynch

'I'm not just thinking of caring but also thinking of cleaning'

'there is no justification for low for low wages for for anybody anywhere.'

'There can't be no blank checks anymore'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Philippe Lamberts

'Austerity needs to come back. In Davos.'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Jakob Hafele

'We need to create concrete economies where you cannot win if you keep burning fossil fuels'

3 paths:
- We have to prioritise debt in economic policy

- We need a new North Star: economic resilience

- it's not enough to say 'goals' you need to deliver them

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Jakob Hafele

We need to look at the technical level at the level of where the indicators are, and we need to look at the governance level that describes how the indicators are actually translated into concrete policies, and then we need to make sure that alternative future-fit indicators are implemented, so you really got to start using them.'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Jakob Hafele

'Only the businesses that are all in for the transformation get the support'

'The money is already there is just sitting on a Cayman Island and not doing its job'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Jakob Hafele

'Let's not make it livelihoods versus environment'

'By involving the people you actually don't slow down the transition but make it possible'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Agata Meysner

'This is the call of youths claiming their rights to their future'

'We're calling for absolute reduction of our resource consumption, slashing production of resource intensive goods and services, such as the meat industry, automotive industry and fast fashion'

'We're calling the EU to ban unpaid internship across all member state'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Agata Meysner

'Youth engagement has become a bit of a buzzword which might lead to youthwashing'

'Young people are not responsible for giving you hope and future generation are not responsible for fixing your failed leadership'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Agata Meysner

'Extreme affluence drives overconsumption. A transition to a post-growth economy is a story of privilege'

'It is what we choose to do next [after the conference] that matters'

'Future generations don't need our obsession with economic growth'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Anuna De Wever

'We are fundamentally rethinking the global economy, because we must'

'Who are we growing this economy for and what stories do we

'If we move beyond growth we need to acknowledge what lays behind: white supremacy, colonisation, and imperialism'

'There is no degrowth without decolonisation'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Anuna De Wever

'We need to make sure that, for all of the hundreds of fossil fuel lobbyists demanding growth, there are thousands of us demanding degrowth.'

'the idea of scarcity is artificial, the obsession with growth is artificial.
And the whole concept of the balanced development and whatever that means is artificial.'

'European leaders. If you lack political bravery to make paradigm shifting decisions, then leave it to us.'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Anuna De Wever

'We want a world in which many worlds are possible'

Next steps:
- redistribute wealth,
cancel climate debt
- implement a universal basic income
- massively invest in loss and damage funds - degrow the economy in high-income countries
- increase universal public services,
- reduce working time
- dematerialise and reprioritise what it means to live a human life

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

Day 2 - Closing Plenary
Anuna De Wever

'Abolish Fortress Europe'

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

The conference is closing and I think it's the first time is see an MEP getting emotional.
Really nice how it starts with thanks, because 'gratitude does not go in a footnote'

He also thanks President Roberta Metsola because though she might not agree but she made the conference and supported it no matter what. Because this is democracy.

And the acknowledgement of all the people supporting is so great, rarely happens.

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth

And ofc, again, even if she might not align, MEP Philippe Lamberts thanks to the president of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen.

I guess we can all agree that the EU Parliament did a fantastic job in hosting this conference.

Now we have the evidence, time to put ourselves to work. The governments, and all of us.

#BeyondGrowth #ClimateDiary #degrowth