Green growth or degrowth: what is the right way to tackle climate change?

Sat, 30 Dec 2023 05:34:03 +1100

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

Andrew Pam
<https://theconversation.com/green-growth-or-degrowth-what-is-the-right-way-to-tackle-climate-change-218239>

"Nearly all the world’s governments and vast numbers of its people are
convinced that addressing human-induced climate change is essential if healthy
societies are to survive. The two solutions most often proposed go by various
names but are widely known as “green growth” and “degrowth”. Can these ideas be
reconciled? What do both have to say about the climate challenge?

The crude version of green growth – the solution that dominates the discourse
of developed countries – is essentially that technology will save us if we get
the incentives right. We can stick with the idea that economic growth is the
central determinant of human flourishing, we just need technological fixes for
unsustainable industrial practices. These will emerge if we get prices pointing
in a green direction, which is first and foremost about carbon taxes.

Yet this sort of thinking still seems head-in-the-sand. Yes, the emissions
intensity of per-capita GDP growth is generally falling, in part because added
economic value increasingly comes from ideas not widgets.

Sweden, for example, has increased its GDP by 76% but its domestic energy use
by only 2.5% since 1995. But we are still missing carbon reduction deadlines by
wide margins and struggling to enact meaningful carbon pricing."

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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