UK

Fishing in the Maldives. Shutterstock/tommybarbaSmall islands in the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean or in the Pacific islands promise dream holidays and the fulfilment of bucket lists. And, for the islands themselves, tourism is a vital source of jobs, income and prosperity.

Visiting a modern petrochemical plant makes you feel incredibly small. Enormous compressors roar incessantly, distillation columns tower high above your head, large pipelines full of oil and gas criss-cross the site. Heat radiates from inspection hatches in the furnaces in which the hydrocarbons are heated to 850°C to make the molecules crack. It’s easy to get lost in alleys of ducts and pipes, which to an untrained eye, all look the same.

Sepp photography/ShutterstockSome economists have long argued that to really save the planet – and ourselves – from the climate crisis, we need a fundamental overhaul of the way our economies work. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly, we explore the ideas of the degrowth movement and their calls for a contraction in the world’s consumption of energy and resources.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget and three-year spending review looks pivotal for the UK, coming amid shortages, rising prices and yet another COVID surge.