6 Minute English / What is degrowth?

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Phil Hello, and welcome to 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I m Phil and today we have Hannah joining us again from BBC podcast, What in the World. Welcome Hannah.

Hannah Hey Phil, it is so great to be back here. So, I m wondering, do you do things that you think are good for the planet?

Phil I try, but I don't think I do enough. So, maybe I cycle more than I drive, and I try to recycle things, but I should be doing a lot more.

Hannah But some people think that to deal with climate change, we can t just rely on individuals. Phil, it s not up to you and me. We need to actually change the way our economy works. And this is an idea called degrowth, and we ve been investigating it at What in the World, and we re going to learn more about it today.

Phil But first, our quiz question. World leaders promised in 2015 to limit global temperature rises. But what was the limit they agreed to? Was it:

a. 1.5C?b. 2.5C?c. 3.5C?

I think I know this one, Phil. I think it's 1.5C.

OK. We'll find out the answer later in the programme. So, Hannah, you ve been researching degrowth what does that mean?

Well Phil, traditionally governments have always wanted to grow the economy. More money, more jobs and more stuff. But degrowth is a different way of thinking about things. Some people say that to tackle the climate crisis we need to stop our economies from growing. We need to stop using and making more and focus on using fewer of the Earth s natural resources. The people who support the idea of degrowth, are often called degrowthers.