A comment on the Tim Harford and Channel 4’s Skint: The Truth About Britain’s Broken Economy and how the hand waving dismissal of the climate challenges accompanying the proposed ‘growth’ panacea is not supported by the data.
As a frequent listener to “More or Less”, I decided to watch Tim Harford’s recent “Skint” programme on Channel 4. As with “More or Less”, Skint began by differentiating itself from most other programmes and partisan claims by appealing to a neutral apolitical high-ground, one where analysis and conclusions were solely driven by the data.
Whilst I agreed with some elements of Tim Harford’s description of how the UK has arrived at such a squalid and crumbling state (e.g. Cameron and Osborne’s myopic slashing of infrastructure spending), when it came to Tim’s simplistic “growth” panacea, I was left far from convinced. Specifically concerning to me here was his superficial coverage of the environmental and climate challenges posed by an ever-growing economy.
“Economic growth doesn’t have to destroy the planet” so Tim asserts, without providing any supporting global data. And then, with the deftness of a skilled magician, he continues “In the UK we’ve had huge amounts of economic growth in my lifetime, & yet our emissions of carbon dioxide per person have more than halved.”
There are two levels of misleading downscaling here. First geographical; not only does Tim assert that economic growth at the global level is compatible with a sustainable planet, but that rich and high resource-consuming nations such as the UK can also pursue ‘green’ economic growth; again, no evidence (data) is provided. Second, he dangerously shifts the framing from absolute to relative emissions (i.e. per person), yet the climate is totally indifferent to emissions per capita, caring only about the absolute levels of emissions.
Such hand-waving dismissal of the climate challenges posed by Tim’s economic cure is reminiscent of the partisan political nonsense that Skint claims to have risen above. Where are the data-based critiques, the reasoned thinking, and the cogent conclusions? In my view, Tim’s assertion that the ‘solution’ to the UK’s malaise, a return to year-on-year economic growth (per person) of around 2%, was not a conclusion, but rather a tacit starting criteria.
The UK is a very wealthy nation and with a high annual income, it just choses to privatise much of its wealth and income rather than spend it on its services and infrastructure. Ultimately, if the UK is to deliver on the Paris Agreement’s temperature and equity commitments, the science and maths suggest that it will, at the very least, need to live within its existing resource use. This points much more to a triage agenda of reallocating society’s current wherewithal, rather than one of relying on ongoing economic growth and Tim’s unquantified belief in decoupling such growth from emissions.
Testing this choice between living within the UK’s already highly privileged levels of wealth and income, or pursuing ongoing economic growth, is an issue where data can provide useful, if not key, insights. It is such a test that the rest of this article now focusses on and which Skint conveniently ignored.
Over recent decades, consecutive UK governments have overseen an economy that has increasingly offshored its emissions by shifting the balance away from manufacture and towards services. Consumption-based data, to a degree at least, takes account of offshoring, however such data has only been available since 1990. From 1990 up until the banking crisis (2008), the UK saw no reduction in emissions, and actually a small increase. As Tim notes, since austerity the UK economy has been relatively static … and yes emissions have begun to fall. Between 2008 and 2019 (to avoid the Covid anomaly) consumption-based emissions fell at an average of 3% p.a. (territorial emissions fell at 3.5% p.a.) It is worth noting here that emissions from international aviation and shipping are not included in the national emissions inventory and, overall, these emissions are much ‘stickier’ than those from other sectors.
At a headline level, Tim’s growth panacea calls for an ongoing rise in GDP/person of 2% per annum. If this had occurred between 2008 and 2019, and with the population rising at 0.5% each year (as it did), then, other things being equal, the annual rate of emission reductions would have been under 0.5% (i.e. the 3% reduction that did occur with a static economy, adjusted for 2% p.a. GDP growth/person and 0.5% p.a. growth in population).
As noted earlier, this excludes international aviation and shipping activity, both of which typically grow with GDP and, for aviation at least, at rates higher than the sectors’ rates of decarbonisation. So, the 0.5% p.a. decarbonisation of the UK’s real-economy (i.e. consumption-based) is likely to be an overestimate. Look a bit deeper into Tim’s growth panacea, and much of it is about growth in physical infrastructure, more motorways, houses, trams, hospitals, industry, etc.; all of which typically have higher carbon intensity than the service sectors. So that 0.5% looks even more optimistic; but let’s stick with it anyway.
At a reduction of 0.5% in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per year (starting from around half a billion tonnes in 2024[1]), the UK would still be emitting in excess of 350 million tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) in 2100, and, theoretically, 130MtCO2 in 2300. The cumulative emissions would be over 77 billion tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) … and it is the cumulative emissions that most closely relate to temperature[2]. Ok, undoubtedly over the longer period “other things will be far from be equal”. But this simple extrapolation of the data, combined with Tim’s growth-based solution, does ask fundamental questions about the growth panacea; questions that were simply glossed over (without data) in Skint.
For those who prefer UK territorial emissions (again excluding those from international aviation and shipping), the story is similarly bleak. From when Tim was born (1973) up until the 2008 banking crisis (and the shift to no real GDP/capita growth), UK emissions fell by an average of a little over 0.3% p.a., basically they didn’t change by any meaningful level. Since 2008, the average fall in territorial emissions has been 3.5% p.a. (out to and including 2019) – i.e. slightly above about the fall in consumption-based data. Again, factor in Tim’s GDP/capita growth panacea of 2% p.a., then, had Tim’s preferences played out, UK territorial emissions would have fallen by 1% p.a. (probably less than this once aviation and shipping are included). This gives a UK territorial level of cumulative emissions of over 30 billion tonnes of CO2 (lower than the consumption total, because the starting value is smaller and the rate of reduction is slightly higher).
For comparison, let’s be highly optimistic and assume the 3% actual reductions between 2008 and 2019 could be continued even with Tim’s 2% p.a. growth panacea? The total cumulative UK emissions from 2024 onwards would then be a little over 10 billion tonnes (10GtCO2).
Now let’s review all of this within the context of the Paris temperature commitments and the IPCC’s carbon budgets, updated to start of 2024.
For a 50% chance of staying below 1.5°C, the remaining carbon budget is: ~340GtCo2
For an 83% chance of staying below 2°C, the remaining carbon budget is: ~740GtCO2
The UK population in 2024 is 68 million, which is 0.82% of the global population.
Yet, for the 1.5°C framing of Paris, and following Tim’s growth proposal the UK would take in the region of 9% (territorial-based) and 23% (consumption-based) of the global budget.
For the 2°C temperature rise (with all its additional impacts and ‘tipping point’ risks) the UK would take between 4% and 10%. [All numbers are rounded].
Even at a 3% annual cut in CO2, as occurred between 2008 and 2019 (though with a static economy and excluding emissions from aviation and shipping), the UK would take 3% of the Global 1.5°C budget and a little under 1.5% of the 2°C budget.
Acknowledging that this analysis is very much headline only, Tim’s glossing over the carbon implications of his growth panacea hides the UK taking 11 to 28x its equal per capita share of the remaining 1.5°C global carbon budget. For 2°C, this falls to between 5 and 12x.
Even if the levels of emission reductions that were achieved with a static economy between 2008 and 2019 could be replicated with a growing economy, the UK would still consume 4x its equal per capita 1.5°C allowance, reducing to a little under 2x for 2°C.
All of this is challenging enough, but since the IPCC’s budget estimates, the scientific understanding of the links between emissions and temperatures has improved. Based on Lamboll and colleagues work[3], the global 1.5°C budget is now considered to be around 35% smaller than that proposed earlier by the IPCC; and for 2°C, 16% smaller. These values only serve to further undermine the validity of Tim’s growth assertion.
A final round of nails in the growth coffin, arises from how the Paris Agreement, and all climate protocols since 1992, embed the central concept of international equity. Defined as “Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities” (often reduced to CBDR), this commitment requires wealthier industrialised nations to lead on mitigation and eliminate emissions ahead of poorer nations. Consequently, “developing country parties” are entitled to a favourable division of the global carbon budget. The appealing simplicity of an equal per capita allocation is far from any such a fair division and, as already noted, Tim’s growth proposals are many multiple times more unfair than even equal per capita.
Put all this together, and I suggest the opening claim of Skint to offer evidence-based analysis, reliant on data, is decidedly misleading. It embeds and hides a deeply entrenched political doctrine, and then works from this as if it is a scientifically based foundation. Certainly, I fully endorse the intention of ‘More or Less’ and the how this extends to the apparent framing of “Skint”. However, I remain deeply concerned that when it comes to economics, the growth panacea described in Skint is little more than astrology with maths and graphs designed to conceal partisan beliefs.
[1] Based on Global Carbon Project data and assuming the value for 2024 is similar to 2022.