Decarbonization and the Democracy Crisis

In the third workshop of the CGP workshop series, Guntram Wolff presented his working paper “Can climate change be tackled without ditching economic growth?“. He explored whether decarbonisation and economic growth are compatible or whether the world economy needs to grow less to be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to reach net zero in 2050, building on recent work at Bruegel. In the second part of the workshop, Helmut Anheier and Edward Knudsen talked about “Responsible Leadership in Democracy”, looking in particular at values and accountability and building on recent work for the Club de Madrid. They discussed the crisis of leadership, especially during the pandemic where leaders showed detached, self-serving leadership styles, failing to find the balance between personal conviction and responsibility.