Democratically planned degrowth: Modeling for rapid climate crisis mitigation

Degrowth posits that achieving rapid decarbonization must be coupled with policies that seek to rectify unequal distribution of power and resources. However, research has yet to model macroeconomic policy pathways that can advance social equity, maintain macroeconomic stability, and deliver emissions reductions consistent with the 1.5 °C carbon budget. This study resolves that gap by using an environmentally extended multi-regional input-output (EE-MRIO) framework to simulate the impacts of four degrowth policies over a ten-year transition horizon: (1) targeted downscaling of economic sectors; (2) reductions in working hours; (3) progressive income redistribution; and (4) universal basic income. Our model presents six scenarios that combine these policies with varying implementation intensities across Global North and Global South countries, and evaluate outcomes across ecological and social dimensions pertinent to transformative justice. Results show that scenarios integrating work time reductions and income redistribution achieve substantial emissions reductions while limiting unemployment and Global South economic disruption. Conversely, market-led scenarios with limited social protection shift contraction costs onto labor and fail to meet 1.5 °C reduction targets. Importantly, solely relying on efficiency-driven decarbonization under continued economic growth projections proves insufficient, even under optimistic technological assumptions. As a final step, our results are applied to a simulated democratic economic planning model by using a multi-criteria decision analysis to rank degrowth scenarios under alternative political values. We demonstrate that when popular concerns over ecological sustainability, equity, and worker justice are accounted for in economic outcomes, degrowth garners far more social support than capitalist green growth policies.