The Rise and Flaws of Green Growth

Global Environmental Change, 2011

Green growth has become a buzz word in both policy and academic circles. A clear definition is still lacking, but most analysts would associate the term with environmentally sustainable, biodiverse, low-carbon and climate-resilient growth in human prosperity. That is, green growth is much more than just low-carbon growth of conventional GDP, although the focus often is on climate change mitigation and GDP-based measures of costs and benefits. The attraction of the green growth narrative is both strategic and analytical. From a strategic point of view, green growth allows environmental protection to be cast as a question of opportunity and reward, rather than costly restraint. Authors such as Barrett (2003, 2007) have long argued that a key barrier to reaching an international agreement on climate change is the burden-sharing focus of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol are structured around obligations, targets, penalties and costs. As such, they are not very attractive agreements to join or to defend in addressing electorates. A structure that rewards environmental behaviour, for example, by offering market opportunities for clean energy, would be much easier to agree. The green growth narrative responds to this observation and aims to reposition both the international and national debates on climate change and the environment. The analytical argument is perhaps more fundamental, and mostly relates to the economics of climate change. For years the economic debate on greenhouse gas mitigation has been about marginal abatement costs. Economists and engineers have argued at length about the merits of various cost estimates, the difference between top-down and bottom-up modelling, the existence of an energy efficiency gap and much else (see, for example, Kuik et al., 2009; Edenhofer et al., 2010, for recent discussions). But their analysis is usually divorced from broader economic and environmental concerns, such as the co-benefits of mitigation. The 'green growth' agenda abandons this narrow focus, throwing the debate wide open and bringing broader, more nuanced and richer strands of economics to bear. In doing so the emerging green growth literature can draw on many long traditions of economic thinking that encompass the work of, among others, John Maynard Keynes, Arthur Cecil Pigou, Joseph Schumpeter, and Henry George. The agenda also opens up important new research questions which policy-makers will need answered. 2. The Keynesian perspective Considering first short-term horizons-which seem to be of most importance in politics-the 'green growth' agenda reconnects

The greatest challenge of the century is to meet the needs of current and future generations, of a large and growing world population, while at the same time ensuring the sustainability of the natural environment. The current development model places unsustainable pressures on the natural resources—forests, land, water and the atmosphere—and causes an increasing frequency and intensity of natural and humanitarian disasters. The paper agrees with increasing evidence that business-as-usual is not an option, but it takes issues with many of the suggested policy responses. Human wellbeing is inseparably linked to economic growth, and economic growth inevitably has environmental implications. While it is impossible to decouple these linkages, countries can promote more sustainable development pathways by altering these linkages. To this end, they have three principle policy levers, which will need to complement each other: Efforts to promote more inclusive economic growth, efforts to increase resource-efficiency, and efforts to address and harness demographic changes. The paper has important implications for the discussions on sustainable development goals and the post-2015 development agenda, which takes place at the United Nations.

Energy Policy, 2012

c ''Green growth''-from a sectoral to an integrated view of the economy. c Green investment can increase the GDP. c ''Green growth'' is both, rapid growth of green sectors and ''de-growth'' of others. c ''Zero growth'' is no solution of the environmental problem. c Rich countries can achieve high speed of eco-innovation even with low growth rates.

Ecological Economics, 1995

Policy Research Working Papers, 2012

Technological Forecasting and Social Change

Governments in countries across the world increasingly adopt the "green growth" discourse to underline their ambition for the greening of their economies. The central tenet of this narrative is the economic opportunities rather than challenges arising from the pursuit of environmental sustainability. Our paper synthesises insights from 113 recent scientific articles, dealing with both environmental issues and economic growth, as well as innovation. Our ambition is exploratory in attempting to take stock of heterogeneous contributions across the spectrum of social science. The articles have been reviewed with a focus on six themes, derived from current discussions in economic geography and transition studies: skills, technology, physical resources, markets, institutions and policies. Four major implications emerge from the review. First, green growth requires competences that allow for handling complex, non-routine situationsin both the private and the public sector. Second, technological progress should be directed towards greener technologies, to avoid investments funds being channelled to brown technologies for short-term returns. Third, our knowledge of the opportunities for achieving green growth must base upon a joint assessment of market failures, structural system failures and transformational system failures. Finally, greater attention should be devoted to the geography of green growth processes at different scales.

2012

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Science

2011

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, 2017

In Paris, on 14 December 1960, the member governments of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development signed a convention which opened with the commitment "to achieve the highest sustainable economic growth and employment and a rising standard of living in Member countries" (OECD 1960, Article 1a). In the midtwentieth century this prioritization of economic growth was still novel for governments but has since become the norm, not just for members of the OECD, but for virtually all governments around the world. The dominant belief is that ever-expanding economic output can provide the means to tackle most if not all of the problems confronting society, such as unemployment, poverty, and environmental degradation, and provide funding for transit, education, health, the arts and more. Indeed, without growth, the concern is that these problems and funding requirements will only get worse. So the pursuit of economic growth provides a compelling narrative for all those interested in economic policy and the future direction of society. About a quarter of a century after the OECD Convention, the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) questioned whether and under what conditions economic growth could be sustained. The Commission envisaged a future characterized by sustainable development rather than unrestrained economic growth. While sustainability has not replaced growth as the order of the day, at least as far as governments are concerned, it has entered the vocabulary of public discourse where a key division exists between those who think that growth and sustainability are perfectly compatible and those who think that a choice must be made between them. Nourishing this ongoing debate is rich intellectual discussion around the relationship between economic growth and sustainability dating back at least as far as Mill (1848 [1970]). In 1972 the discussion entered public and political discourse with the publication of The Limits to Growth (Meadows et al. 1972) which posited a conflict between growth and sustainability. Their simulations of the world system suggested that if trends continued, economic growth would seriously deplete the world's

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 2012

Journal of Risk and Financial Management

This article questions the assumptions, sustainability and ethics of endless economic growth on the basis of environmental science, ecological economics and ecological ethics. It considers the impossibility and unsustainability of endless physical growth on a finite planet. It considers the indicators of environmental degradation (all increasing) and argues that society’s addiction to endless growth is irresponsible. It discusses the key problem of denial, and how this blocks us from finding workable solutions. It discusses how in theory GDP could continue to grow modestly in the future if we adopted a steady-state economy where growth was not caused by an expanding population or resource use. However, this model is currently unpopular, with many advocating the green and circular economies that are partial solutions, and which justify ongoing growth through a fantasy of absolute decoupling. I discuss the need for society to change its anthropocentric worldview to one of ecocentrism....

The focus of this thesis is on whether or not it is possible to decouple economic growth from the physical growth of the economy and its associated negative environmental pressures and pollution. The thesis demonstrates that it is possible to achieve significant levels of decoupling of economic growth from a range of environmental pressures such as greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss and natural resource degradation, freshwater extraction, air pollution, waste and hazardous waste. By clearly differentiating between economic and physical growth and focusing on how to achieve significant decoupling this thesis advances the traditional debates and discourses about “growth”. This thesis shows that in theory and practice it is possible to achieve significant levels of decoupling, and thus environmental sustainability, whilst maintaining economic growth. This thesis examines the relative costs of inaction versus action on decoupling, concluding that the costs of inaction significantly outweigh the costs of action. It also examines whether a transition to environmental sustainabilty will lead to net job losses or gains, showing that, with effective policy, it can result in net employment gains. As such, this thesis provides a new integration to show that it is possible to reconcile the need to simultaneously achieve environmental sustainability, economic growth and job creation. This result has important implications for other important sustainability debates such as the climate change debates. These are explored in detail in this thesis. This thesis also demonstrates that many social sustainability goals – reducing poverty, inequality and corruption whilst improving access to education and health –correlate strongly with improved economic growth. Thus this thesis demonstrates that it is possible to create a new form of economic growth that is also environmentally and socially sustainable as called for in the seminal text on sustainable development "Our Common Future" in 1987. Finally, this thesis is a formal defense of and contribution to the academic field of ecological modernization which has hypothesized that it is possible to simultaneously pursue environmental sustainability, social justice and economic growth in ways that mutually re-enforce each other. This thesis provides significant evidence to support this central tenet of ecological modernisation. The research of this thesis has helped inform and contribute to several international book publications all of which show nations how to achieve significant decoupling of economic growth from environmental pressures such as Cents and Sustainability:Securing Our Common Future by Decoupling Economic Growth from Environmental Pressures (Earthscan, 2010). Note: This thesis was submitted in May 2008 and was awarded in 2009. You can download all the chapters individually from the ANU digital thesis library here https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/49387

E3S Web of Conferences, 2019

The premises and conclusions of the Science and the Future conference held in 2013 are the basis for this paper. I shall describe the changes occurred in the world since 2013 to present both on the positive and on the negative side, together with the failures to change, that will be discussed during the present conference. I shall especially point out the failure to address the contradiction between material growth and sustainability. The limit posed by the growing complexity of the global economy will be demonstrated, showing its implications for theungovernability of the system. I will stress the difficulty and urgency of a fully rational analysis and the discussion of some strongholds of the present social paradigm, which are intrinsically entangled with human and material unsustainability.