Jeroen van den Bergh awarded an ERC Advanced Grant

Can different beliefs on whether or not to continue promoting economic growth influence political and social support for climate policies addressing the climate crisis? The aim of the new project "Climate Policy versus Economic Growth: Views, Models and Innovative Strategies" (CLIMGROW) is to discover the answer to this question and how the resulting problems can be solved.

The project, led by ICTA-UAB economist Jeroen van den Bergh, has received an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Climate change has revived the debate on limits-to-growth. The proposal considers that research on support for climate policy neglects the role of this debate, as well as the associated opinion dynamics. The project will therefore analyze to what extent concerns about economic growth, ranging from pro- to anti-growth, hamper social-political support for ambitious climate policy, and how this can be amended.

Using surveys, experiments and interviews, researchers will firstly assess whether beliefs about growth versus environment affect the opinions stakeholders (voters, advisers, NGOs, etc.) have about climate policy, and if this is moderated by their preferences regarding instruments, such as standards or subsidies. They will further test the role of information by comparing the communicative appeal and political judgement under distinct beyond-GDP metrics. In addition, they will explore how growth concerns have affected the design of pledges in the Paris Agreement, as these demarcate national climate policies.

Based on the data and insights collected, the second part of the project will undertake system dynamics and agent-based modelling to study co-dynamics of climate-policy design and support. The result will be a model of the "policy-support cycle", comprising policy design, economic and emissions impacts, opinion dynamics (support/resistance) and policy adaptation. To this end, growth strategies and climate policies will be compared under distinct beyond-GDP metrics, and connecting this to stakeholder opinion dynamics, to assess which dynamic policy paths can count on stable and sufficient support under diverse economic and climate scenarios.

Based on the results, it will explore whether an “agrowth” strategy can increase support for ambitious climate policy. Agrowth reflects indifference about GDP patterns, motivated by GDP but not measuring genuine progress.

Given stakeholder diversity, researchers will perform interviews to formulate tailored strategies in this respect. Proposals similar to agrowth, notably under the label of “post-growth”, will be examined as well.