Prosperity without Growth

The UK's Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) have recently produced one of their bravest publications, Prosperity Without Growth. It clearly lays out the evidence and rationale for and against contiuned economic growth, and the importance of differentiating between relative and absolute decoupling. It also lays out the scale of task in front of us:

"The scale of improvement required is daunting. In a world of nine billion people, all aspiring to a level of income commensurate with 2% growth on the average EU income today, carbon intensities (for example) would have to fall on average by over 11% per year to stabilise the climate, 16 times faster than it has done since 1990. By 2050, the global carbon intensity would need to be only six
grams per dollar of output, almost 130 times lower than it is today."

Whilst the routemap and policies needed to get us there are not yet clear, the SDC's role in bringing the need for change into the public arena through documents such as this is of profound importance.