Why Not Green Growth?

The current economic expansion is unsustainable in terms of climate change and ecological breakdown -- this is a widely accepted fact. It spawned the so-called Paris Agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed back in 2016. Its long-term goal is to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and, if possible, limit the increase to 1.5°C in an effort to mitigate the effects industrialization has had on our planet.

The green growth theory is one of several approaches to fulfilling the Paris Agreement. Its main idea is the decoupling of GDP growth from resource use and carbon emissions, which would lead to using natural resources in a more sustainable manner. The idea itself is a worthy cause, but critics warn that to meet the criteria set by the Paris Agreement, green growth is a half-baked measure at best. In reality, it is severely misguided.

Researchers point out that as of right now, there is no empirical evidence that the necessary decoupling of resource use from growth can be achieved on a global scale, especially if the plan is keeping any growth at all. Additionally, even if it were possible, it is highly unlikely that such an approach could be implemented rapidly enough to meet the necessary criteria.

Perhaps worst of all, once capitalists lose their access to natural resources, where else will they acquire the free input they need for radical growth? Unfortunately, previous experience points towards them finding new ways to squeeze workers and create an artificial scarcity of immaterial things in order to profit off them -- like knowledge, green spaces, even parenting or physical touch. This poses a very important question: is growth still the way to go?