June 2020
Graeme Maxton is an economist, lecturer and best-selling author. He was Secretary General of the Club of Rome from 2014 to 2018. His latest book, Globaler Klimanotstand (Global Climate Emergency), was published in 2020. He is deeply critical of modern economic thinking and writes urgently about the need for fundamental change. His 2018 book Change! Warum wir eine radikale Wende brauchen (Why we need a radical turnaround) was a number one Amazon best-seller in Germany. Felicity Eliot interviewed him in early April at a very intense time of the lockdown.
SI: What strange times we find ourselves in!
Graeme Maxton: Indeed, but it is one of those things which I suppose has been expected in some form and, of course, the more we push against the boundaries of nature the more likely it is that such a thing is going to happen. But, awful as it is in terms of human lives lost and misery, it’s the first thing that’s given me hope in a long time.
SI: Despite all the suffering, many seem to be hopeful, sensing that there are possibilities within the present bizarre time of plague. One thing is clear — we can’t go back to business as usual. Do I understand you to mean that you think most change advocated isn’t radical enough?
GM: The idea that you can just make slight modifications to the way we do things, the way we live, recycle more and cut the number of flights you take is not going to achieve anything like the cut in emission levels needed. But suddenly it seems possible! We can stop all the flights. We can stop all those cars, all those ships carrying all sorts of stuff that we don’t need all around the world. And now suddenly that radical thing is being shown to have happened. So suddenly what seemed a fanciful idea can happen. And this has given people like me a tremendous opportunity to say: look we can do it! For the first time in a very long time I feel optimistic because we can see that we can actually solve the climate problem.
SI: Some are still in denial about climate change, including some prominent leaders. Could you say how it is that our financial and economic systems clash with the environment and have resulted in much destruction of the planet?
GM: We have this economic system where we try and grow the economy every year. There’s great focus on economic growth, but to achieve growth we have to increase production. To increase production we have to use more resources. And we have to use more energy, since to do all these things needs energy. To dig up all those resources and to generate the energy required for the factories, the ships, all the things that are required to grow food as well, for example, to create all that energy is mostly based on carbon. And that means coal, oil and gas. So every year we have to create more stuff which means we have to generate more energy which creates more emissions and so we create climate change. It is the push for increased productivity and more economic growth that is the direct cause of climate change.
