Idea of green growth losing traction among climate policy researchers, survey of nearly 800 academics reveals

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 22:12:34 +1100

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://theconversation.com/idea-of-green-growth-losing-traction-among-climate-policy-researchers-survey-of-nearly-800-academics-reveals-213434>

"When she took to the floor to give her State of the Union speech on 13
September, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen largely stood by
the script. Describing her vision of an economically buoyant and sustainable
Europe in the era of climate change, she called on the EU to accelerate the
development of the clean-tech sector, “from wind to steel, from batteries to
electric vehicles”. “When it comes to the European Green Deal, we stick to our
growth strategy,” von der Leyen said.

Her plans were hardly idiosyncratic. The notion of green growth – the idea that
environmental goals can be aligned with continued economic growth – is still
the common economic orthodoxy for major institutions like the World Bank and
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The OECD has promised to “strengthen their efforts to pursue green growth
strategies […], acknowledging that green and growth can go hand-in-hand”, while
the World Bank has called for “inclusive green growth” where “greening growth
is necessary, efficient, and affordable”. Meanwhile, the EU has framed green
growth as

“a basis to sustain employment levels and secure the resources needed to
increase public welfare […] transforming production and consumption in ways
that reconcile increasing GDP with environmental limits”.

However, our survey of nearly 800 climate policy researchers from around the
world reveals widespread scepticism toward the concept in high-income
countries, amid mounting literature arguing that the principle may neither be
viable nor desirable. Instead, alternative post-growth paradigms including
“degrowth” and “agrowth” are gaining traction."

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

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