Integrated assessment modelling of degrowth scenarios for Australia

Mengyu Li, Lorenz Keyβer, Jarmo S. Kikstra, Jason Hickel, Paul E. Brockway, Nicolas Dai, Arunima Malik and Manfred Lenzen

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Empirical evidence increasingly indicates that to achieve sufficiently rapid decarbonisation, high-income economies may need to adopt degrowth policies, scaling down less-necessary forms of production and demand, in addition to rapid deployment of renewables. Calls have been made for degrowth climate mitigation scenarios. However, so far these have not been modelled within the established Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) for future scenario analysis of the energy-economy-emission nexus, partly because the architecture of these IAMs has growth ‘baked in’. In this work, we modify one of the common IAMs–MESSAGEix–to make it compatible with degrowth scenarios. We simulate scenarios featuring low and negative growth in a high-income economy (Australia). We achieve this by detaching MESSAGEix from its monotonically growing utility function, and by formulating an alternative utility function based on non-monotonic preferences. The outcomes from such modified scenarios reflect some characteristics of degrowth futures, including reduced aggregate production and declining energy and emissions. However, further work is needed to explore other key degrowth features such as sectoral differentiation, redistribution, and provisioning system transformation.

Keywords: degrowth; energy-economy decoupling; Integrated Assessment Models; post-growth; Utility function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O40 Q54 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2024-12-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-hme and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Economic Systems Research, 31, December, 2024, 36(4), pp. 545 - 575. ISSN: 0953-5314

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:123739

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