We already know this, yet we look away
What comes to mind when we think about solutions to the climate crisis? ESG-oriented business management, carbon capture and storage(CCS), environmentally friendly architecture — what is most visible in the news today is overwhelmingly professionalized and technological. Yet critical questions remain: when will these solutions, currently in the spotlight, produce real impact, and to what extent will they actually help?
Various solutions have been proposed to address environmental problems. Some involve relatively recent technologies such as CCS and chemical recycling. Others, however, are technologies that were introduced long ago and have since generated new kinds of problems. Plastic, for instance, was originally developed to replace ivory in order to reduce elephant poaching. Although it succeeded in its initial purpose, elephants remain seriously endangered today, and plastic has become a major driver of environmental pollution.
Ecological problems — woven together in multidimensional ways, including the climate crisis — cannot be solved merely through material substitution or the adoption of a single technology. In truth, we already understand this. Yet we continue to avert our gaze. What must fundamentally change are economic systems built on endless expansion through the exploitation of nature, as well as mechanisms that depend on mass production, consumption, and disposal. These issues are so vast and entrenched that imagining change feels almost impossible, and even discussing such transformation openly is often avoided.
In this context, the report 『Building blocks for climate justice: 8 measures for a future of solidarity』, published by the degrowth think tank Konzeptwerk in Leipzig, Germany, is particulary significant because it addresses concrete changes that can be made within the existing system to enable structural economic transformation. The report proposes eight key measures that could be implemented within five to ten years to support socio-ecological change:
1. Just housing distribution
2. Car-free cities
3. Energy prices
4. Shortened working hours
5. Just land policies
6. Socio-ecological taxation
7. Climate debt and compensation
8. Basic income and social compensation
For some readers, these proposals may seem too radical; for others, they may appear lukewarm and overly cautious. However, if you have primarily understood approaches to address the climate crisis as professional trends such as ESG and climate tech — and if you genuinely aspire to contribute to a better world in an era of ecological crisis — then these proposals deserve serious consideration.
Today's report:
Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie e.V. (Hrsg.). (2023). Bausteine für Klimagerechtigkeit: 8 Maßnahmen für eine solidarische Zukunft. München: oekom verlag.
Building blocks for climate justice | Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie (German)