Systemic demand-side climate action: How degrowth, equity, and cultural narratives reshape mitigation beyond cost-benefit metrics
Original framing: “Using less, living better: Demand-side climate action wins public support” — Phys.org
The fetishization of 'less' as a climate solution ignores how consumerism emerged from 18th-century industrial capitalism and 20th-century advertising, which manufactured artificial needs. Historical precedents like the 1970s 'small is beautiful' movement or post-WWII rationing show that demand reduction is most effective when tied to equity and crisis response. However, these lessons are rarely applied, as modern climate policy prioritizes market-based solutions over structural reform.
The study’s focus on 'demand-side climate action' inadvertently reveals the limits of technocratic sustainability by centering public support as a proxy for legitimacy, while obscuring the structural forces—colonial capitalism, corporate power, and neoliberal governance—that shape both demand and policy.
Indigenous cosmologies like *buen vivir* and African Ubuntu offer centuries-old blueprints for 'living better' that challenge the very metrics (GDP, cost-per-ton) used to judge climate strategies, yet these are sidelined in favor of market-friendly solutions. The trickster’s role is played by the market itself, which repackages austerity as virtue while perpetuating extraction under a green veneer. A systemic solution requires dismantling the ideological foundations of consumerism through degrowth-linked policies, Indigenous land stewardship, and cultural narrative shifts—all while addressing the historical injustices that have externalized the costs of 'progress' onto marginalized communities. The path forward is not merely technical but civilizational, demanding a reimagining of well-being beyond the metrics that have failed both people and planet.