Replace GNP with parameters which better measure the wellbeing of present-day Canadians
Preamble
WHEREAS The function of good government is to ensure the security of the people, and the enablement of the advancement of their general wellbeing
WHEREAS In wealthy economies such as Canada's, the level of material wealth makes little difference to most peoples' overall wellbeing
WHEREAS Most people value good health, friendships, positive family relationships and a strong community more highly than continually growing material wealth
WHEREAS Even the most ambitious programmes for energy efficiency, conservation, renewables, organic agriculture and green transport policy take time to implement, for both logistical and financial reasons. Until such programmes are close to completion, growth in industrial production, and therefore growth in GDP, will continue to be strongly tied to growth in greenhouse gas emissions.
WHEREAS Climate scientists, including the authors of the International Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report 5 Working Group 2 (2014) predict major adverse impacts from climate change if a business-as-usual path continues, resulting from sea level rise, coastal flooding and storm surges; food insecurity and breakdown of food systems as a result of warming, drought and precipitation variability; inland flooding; loss of drinking water supplies; and ecosystem breakdown. These effects will be experienced disproportionately by the most vulnerable populations.
WHEREAS The International Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report 5 Working Group 3 (2014) indicates immediate concerted action is necessary in order to avoid these catastrophic results, that global emissions levels in 2020 based on the Cancún pledges are "not consistent with longterm mitigation trajectories [capable of limiting] temperature change to 2deg relative to pre-industrial levels", and that "delaying mitigation efforts beyond those in place today through 2030 is estimated to substantially increase the difficulty of the transition to low longer‐term emissions levels and narrow the range of options consistent with maintaining temperature change below 2°C relative to pre‐industrial levels".
WHEREAS Some climate scientists and policy analysts, such as Prof Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre in Britain, take a stronger research-based position. Anderson and his colleagues are of the opinion that a period of "degrowth" is already necessary to accommodate the rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which high-income countries need to make, as emerging industrial and currently non-industrialized countries are unlikely to peak their greenhouse gas emissions before the mid-2020s
Operative
BE IT RESOLVED THAT The Green Party of Canada will use a series of holistic measures of well-being such as the Genuine Progress Indicator, the Human Development Index in use by the United Nations Development Programme and a Measure of Canadian Progress to be developed through consultation about Canadian priorities, based on the model developed in Australia. The Green Party will seek expert advice as to the most suitable indicators or variants to advocate. The Green Party of Canada will stop using GNP as a measure of prosperity, recognizing that GNP will continue to have utility in measuring only the size of the economy, rather than its health or ability to deliver good quality of life.
Background
This year's IPCC Working Group 3 Assessment Report1 concluded substantial economic changes would be necessary if a business-as-usual emissions trend continues for much longer.
Prof Kevin Anderson, of Britain's Tyndall Centre, goes further - he considers lower-income countries will not peak emissions before 2025, and that therefore wealthy countries must act a lot faster2,3. To keep global mean temperatures less than 2degC above pre-industrial levels, Anderson estimates year-on-year emissions cuts of 10% are required4 in the industrialized world - currently incompatible with GDP growth.
Greens also recognize that gross domestic product (GDP) is a poor measure of human wellbeing. GDP measures (primarily) consumption, not human happiness. It includes crime, divorce and natural disasters as economic gain; ignores the non-market economy of household and community; treats the depletion of natural capital as income; increases with polluting activities and again with clean-ups; and takes no account of income distribution. Nearly all indicators of the health of a high-income society are more closely tied to the degree of income equality and social cohesion than to average income5
Hence treating GDP growth as a primary goal negatively impacts both responsible climate policy and progress towards greater societal wellbeing. Shifting to alternative measures, of which several exist6 while also recognizing that growth in sustainable industry needs to be complemented by the shrinkage of unsustainable industry, offers the opportunity to evolve into a mature and sustainable society in which the happiness of present generations and the rights of those to come are properly recognized.
1 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2014), Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. (IPCC AR5 WG3) Available online at http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/
2 Kevin Anderson & Alice Bows (2011), Beyond "dangerous" climate change: emission scenarios for a new world, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2011, vol 369, pp20-44
3 Videos the Radical Emissions Reduction conference, organized by Anderson and other Tyndall Centre scientists in December 2013 at the Royal Society, are available online at http://tyndall.ac.uk/communication/news- archive/2013/radical-emissions-reduction-conference-videos-now-online
4 for example at http://kevinanderson.info/blog/numerical-basis-for-the-eu-adopting-an-80... for-2030/ and http://kevinanderson.info/blog/avoiding-dangerous-climate-change-demands... and
http://kevinanderson.info/blog/follow-up-to-articles-by-klein-romm-about...
5 see Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett (2009, 2010)The Spirit Level, Penguin, and the authors' extensive website on the subject at http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/
6 See, for example, the Genuine Progress Indicator at http://genuineprogress.net/genuine-progress-indicator/
Code
Proposal Type
Submitter Name
Party Commentary
The intent of the motion is to go beyond the Genuine Progress Indicator to recognize that there are multiple useful ways to measure progress. Another particularity with this motion is to add climate change as a major constraint to economic growth.
This motion is partially redundant with the following current policies: 1996 - Economic measurement, G06-P55, Ecological Footprint Analysis, G12-P06 - Limits on Growth, G08-P054 - Global Population and G08-P94 - Population Decline, and much of what is already stated in Vision Green. Some of the aforementioned policy may have to be rescinded (1196 - Economic measurement) if this motion passes. The motion is a mix of values, directives and policies. If this motion passes, careful attention will need to be paid to avoid repetition and consistency with current policies. However, as already mentioned, most of what the motion contains is already in Vision Green in some form, so this motion simply will add these items explicitly to member approved policy.
Preamble
WHEREAS The function of good government is to ensure the security of the people, and the enablement of the advancement of their general wellbeing
WHEREAS In wealthy economies such as Canada's, the level of material wealth makes little difference to most peoples' overall wellbeing
WHEREAS Most people value good health, friendships, positive family relationships and a strong community more highly than continually growing material wealth
WHEREAS Even the most ambitious programmes for energy efficiency, conservation, renewables, organic agriculture and green transport policy take time to implement, for both logistical and financial reasons. Until such programmes are close to completion, growth in industrial production, and therefore growth in GDP, will continue to be strongly tied to growth in greenhouse gas emissions.
WHEREAS Climate scientists, including the authors of the International Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report 5 Working Group 2 (2014) predict major adverse impacts from climate change if a business-as-usual path continues, resulting from sea level rise, coastal flooding and storm surges; food insecurity and breakdown of food systems as a result of warming, drought and precipitation variability; inland flooding; loss of drinking water supplies; and ecosystem breakdown. These effects will be experienced disproportionately by the most vulnerable populations.
WHEREAS The International Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report 5 Working Group 3 (2014) indicates immediate concerted action is necessary in order to avoid these catastrophic results, that global emissions levels in 2020 based on the Cancún pledges are "not consistent with longterm mitigation trajectories [capable of limiting] temperature change to 2deg relative to pre-industrial levels", and that "delaying mitigation efforts beyond those in place today through 2030 is estimated to substantially increase the difficulty of the transition to low longer‐term emissions levels and narrow the range of options consistent with maintaining temperature change below 2°C relative to pre‐industrial levels".
WHEREAS Some climate scientists and policy analysts, such as Prof Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre in Britain, take a stronger research-based position. Anderson and his colleagues are of the opinion that a period of "degrowth" is already necessary to accommodate the rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which high-income countries need to make, as emerging industrial and currently non-industrialized countries are unlikely to peak their greenhouse gas emissions before the mid-2020s
Operative
BE IT RESOLVED THAT The Green Party of Canada will use a series of holistic measures of well-being such as the Genuine Progress Indicator, the Human Development Index in use by the United Nations Development Programme and a Measure of Canadian Progress to be developed through consultation about Canadian priorities, based on the model developed in Australia. The Green Party will seek expert advice as to the most suitable indicators or variants to advocate. The Green Party of Canada will stop using GNP as a measure of prosperity, recognizing that GNP will continue to have utility in measuring only the size of the economy, rather than its health or ability to deliver good quality of life.
Sponsors
Background
This year's IPCC Working Group 3 Assessment Report1 concluded substantial economic changes would be necessary if a business-as-usual emissions trend continues for much longer.
Prof Kevin Anderson, of Britain's Tyndall Centre, goes further - he considers lower-income countries will not peak emissions before 2025, and that therefore wealthy countries must act a lot faster2,3. To keep global mean temperatures less than 2degC above pre-industrial levels, Anderson estimates year-on-year emissions cuts of 10% are required4 in the industrialized world - currently incompatible with GDP growth.
Greens also recognize that gross domestic product (GDP) is a poor measure of human wellbeing. GDP measures (primarily) consumption, not human happiness. It includes crime, divorce and natural disasters as economic gain; ignores the non-market economy of household and community; treats the depletion of natural capital as income; increases with polluting activities and again with clean-ups; and takes no account of income distribution. Nearly all indicators of the health of a high-income society are more closely tied to the degree of income equality and social cohesion than to average income5
Hence treating GDP growth as a primary goal negatively impacts both responsible climate policy and progress towards greater societal wellbeing. Shifting to alternative measures, of which several exist6 while also recognizing that growth in sustainable industry needs to be complemented by the shrinkage of unsustainable industry, offers the opportunity to evolve into a mature and sustainable society in which the happiness of present generations and the rights of those to come are properly recognized.
1 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2014), Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. (IPCC AR5 WG3) Available online at http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/
2 Kevin Anderson & Alice Bows (2011), Beyond "dangerous" climate change: emission scenarios for a new world, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2011, vol 369, pp20-44
3 Videos the Radical Emissions Reduction conference, organized by Anderson and other Tyndall Centre scientists in December 2013 at the Royal Society, are available online at http://tyndall.ac.uk/communication/news- archive/2013/radical-emissions-reduction-conference-videos-now-online
4 for example at http://kevinanderson.info/blog/numerical-basis-for-the-eu-adopting-an-80... for-2030/ and http://kevinanderson.info/blog/avoiding-dangerous-climate-change-demands... and
http://kevinanderson.info/blog/follow-up-to-articles-by-klein-romm-about...
5 see Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett (2009, 2010)The Spirit Level, Penguin, and the authors' extensive website on the subject at http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/
6 See, for example, the Genuine Progress Indicator at http://genuineprogress.net/genuine-progress-indicator/
Party Commentary
The intent of the motion is to go beyond the Genuine Progress Indicator to recognize that there are multiple useful ways to measure progress. Another particularity with this motion is to add climate change as a major constraint to economic growth.
This motion is partially redundant with the following current policies: 1996 - Economic measurement, G06-P55, Ecological Footprint Analysis, G12-P06 - Limits on Growth, G08-P054 - Global Population and G08-P94 - Population Decline, and much of what is already stated in Vision Green. Some of the aforementioned policy may have to be rescinded (1196 - Economic measurement) if this motion passes. The motion is a mix of values, directives and policies. If this motion passes, careful attention will need to be paid to avoid repetition and consistency with current policies. However, as already mentioned, most of what the motion contains is already in Vision Green in some form, so this motion simply will add these items explicitly to member approved policy.