Katya Rhodes: new Swedish grant on economic growth under climate policy

IESVic's Dr. Katya Rhodes is one of four researchers awarded a $1.7 million Swedish Research Council grant led by Dr. Malcolm Fairbrother at Umeå University, Sweden.

The grant will provide funding for a five-year project titled “In search of decoupling: (How) can we combine climate sustainability with economic growth, good jobs, and public preferences?” The project questions whether the economic growth inevitably increases greenhouse gas emissions—one of the most contentious debates within the climate research and environmental communities.

Given the urgent need for politically feasible policies that are both effective and economical, this project will better illuminate the relationship between growth and emissions. The researchers will investigate prior changes in countries’ emissions, as well as the political and socioeconomic factors behind them. They will examine those countries that have most decoupled economic growth from various sources of emissions, in order to identify the main conditions and policy decisions for these achievements.

The researchers will investigate what people believe to be key policies’ impacts on growth and employment. Dr. Katya Rhodes will this coordinate this research, explaining how those beliefs shape preferences with respect to climate policies, and how closely they match the actual track records of existing policies.

Learn more about this exciting new work here: bit.ly/2KvEq7j