Climate Goals: Wellbeing Economy
Debate between Clive Lewis and Claire Hanna(3 years ago)
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Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)
I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for bringing forward this debate and for many years of leadership, giving vision in this area and a lot of practical direction. The necessity for change, and the failures of the economic model that we currently operate, are all around us: in climate and nature breakdown, in inequality within and between nations of the world and between generations, in the depletion of resources and the hoarding of wealth, and in the mental ill health and lack of fulfilment that are beginning to engulf our populations.
The hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) outlined some of the absurdities of GDP as our sole measurement, with all of the negative effects simply written off as “externalities”. It is very clear that a system that accounts for tobacco sales and bets placed by gambling addicts, but does not find any way to capture time spent raising children or the value of clean air, is no longer fit for purpose. We have known that for decades.
The impacts of consumption and growth-driven production on our planet do not need to be articulated in this room. I know that because this country and others like it consume, drill, burn and dump at a rate that would require numerous planets to sustain it. That, of course, causes negative impacts for the planet and its inhabitants.
It would be one thing to keep pursuing this model if it resulted in a healthy and happy population, but it does not. We know that income inequality in the UK is higher than it has been for decades, and probably the highest in Europe. It affects people at every single point on the economic distribution scale, as well as overall societal cohesion. In the absence of any serious mitigation policies, that will unfortunately only get worse.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way in her fantastic speech. She may agree that part of the growth delusion—this constant demand for GDP and growth—is that it will actually begin to trickle down to poorer members of society, both domestically and internationally, yet that does not happen. Rather than keeping on growing the pie, destroying the economy and the planet, would it not be better to better share out the pie we already have within the current limits of the ecology and the environment?