As we come out of the pandemic into the recovery phase Professor Barry proposes we need to ‘build back better’ by building back differently and not seeking to green what was the ‘BC’ economic normal, that is, the Before COVID economic normal. And in building back better we need to challenge the assumption that we can do so within a growth-oriented, global and globalising, capitalist economic system. And so we need to consider that a sustainable economy is a post-carbon, post-growth and post-capitalist one. John Barry Professor of Green Political Economy and Director of the Centre for Sustainability, Equality and Climate Action at Queens University Belfast. What keeps him awake at night is the life opportunities and future wellbeing of his children. His areas of academic research include post-growth and heterodox political economy; the politics, policy and political economy of climate breakdown and climate resilience; and socio-technical analyses of low carbon energy transitions.
His latest book is The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability: Human Flourishing in a Climate-Changed, Carbon-Constrained World (Oxford University Press). Since January 2020 is co-chair of the Belfast Climate Commission, and was a Green Party councillor from 2011-2018 on Ards and North Down council. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at
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