Green growth is a vague term with many definitions, but in general, the idea that society can reduce its environmental impacts and significantly reduce its emissions, while the economy continues to grow and the amount of products produced and consumed increases. The required technology will cause more harm than good, say the authors of a report that criticized this strategy and argued that it is necessary to ensure that emissions decrease even in a situation of economic growth, and if this fails, to give up growth
By: Christine Corlett Walker, PhD Candidate in Ecological Economics, University of Surrey, UK. Translation: Avi Blizovsky, editor of the knowledge site
You may have missed it, though A recently published report stated that the main strategy of world leaders to deal with climate change will not work. The strategy is called green growth, and it is the preferred solution by some of the largest and most influential organizations in the world, including the United Nations and the World Bank.
Green growth is a vague term with many definitions, but in general, the idea that society can reduce its environmental impacts and significantly reduce its emissions, while the economy continues to grow and the amount of products produced and consumed increases.
Green growth will be achieved, according to its supporters, by improving the efficiency of the production and transportation processes, the transition to cleaner energy sources and the development of new technologies to deal with the pollution that economic activity creates. It is better, it is argued, that the transition to a green society is carried out quickly enough to meet the goal of the Paris Agreement, and to keep global warming below one and a half.
The idea of fixing the climate crisis without compromising economic growth sounds appealing. However, the report entitled: "Decoupling debunked" (questioning the coupling between growth and the green economy) summarizes the work of prominent academics according to which there is no evidence that companies have ever been able to decouple economic growth from emissions of this magnitude in the past, and little evidence that they have the ability to achieve This is in the future.
This is not surprising, because historically, global carbon emissions have increased as economies have grown. The processes that produce the goods and services we all consume use raw materials as inputs and produce pollution, carbon emissions and waste.
Making these processes more efficient and replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy can reduce the average emissions that come from every additional dollar of economic growth. However, emissions are still rising in absolute terms because the economy is still growing.
Since the total amount of carbon in the atmosphere is important in the race against climate change, we must reject the idea of "relative decoupling" and choose the stronger concept of "absolute decoupling". Total decommissioning means that even as the economy grows, total carbon emissions will decrease year on year.
With this distinction in mind, the question becomes: Is it possible to completely decouple economic growth from carbon emissions and can it be done quickly enough to prevent catastrophic climate change?
The challenge scale
According to the IPCC, there is a 66% probability that the world can stay below the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming if we emit no more than 420 billion tons of additional carbon into the atmosphere, from the beginning of 2018.
Humans currently emit about 37 billion tons of carbon each year, and this number is still growing. Even the most generous projections suggest that if emissions continue at this rate, the carbon budget will run out in less than twenty years.
The rate of dissolution required is enormous, and far beyond anything seen in the past. Economic growth makes this challenge even more difficult, as increased production and consumption can outpace gains from carbon reduction. But green growth advocates insist it is possible.
The special report of the IPCC, published in October 2018, gives 90 scenarios that are consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, while at the same time continuing economic growth. In the meantime, all is well. But almost every one of these scenarios does not rely on a negative emissions technology called bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS), which has not been fully tested on a large scale.
BECSS involves growing large plantations of trees, which draw carbon from the atmosphere, then cutting and burning them to produce energy. CO₂ emissions from this process are then stored underground. To limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, this technology would have to absorb 7-3 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year. That's at least 2,000 times more than she can absorb now.
To absorb so much carbon, it would be necessary to cover an area twice or even three times that of India. Think about the difficulty of acquiring so much land, the pressure it puts on other land uses, such as food production, and how much natural habitat it can wipe out.
No one can say that these actions are categorically impossible. But the evidence suggests that the chances of meeting the 1.5ᵒC warming target alongside continued economic growth are at best very unlikely. Can we really take this risk - relying on unproven technologies to save us from the threat of climate change? Considering the consequences of the mistake, the gamble, the answer is surely no.
Where does that leave us?
Proposals for green growth that rely only on technology to solve the climate crisis are based on a flawed idea. The limitations of the world's physical systems are flexible, but the structure of its economies is rigid. This expresses more the importance of politics and power in determining the solutions, compared to reality.
So society needs to ask, are these global institutions promoting green growth because they believe it is the most promising way to avoid climate collapse? Or is it because they believe that it is simply impossible to talk about the alternatives?
If we can be optimistic about humanity's ability to develop fantastic new technologies to bend and overcome the limits of nature, can we not lend that same optimism to the development of new economic structures? Our goal in the 21st century should be to create economies that allow people to flourish and grow, even when the economy is not growing.
To the article on THE CONVERSATION website
More of the topic in Hayadan:
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To Lorem Ipsum
On what basis did you determine that the correct technology is fusion reactors?
Battles between technologies happen all the time, and there is no prophet who can assure us which technology will win.
Shall we move the ass? There are enough private and commercial companies trying to develop the next technology.
In addition, the nuclear reactors also have their own problems: https://stwww1.weizmann.ac.il/energy/3-2-10-%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D-%D7%91%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%A2%D7%9C%D7%AA-%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99-%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A2-%D7%92%D7%A8%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%99-%D7%9C%D7%90-%D7%A0%D7%A4%D7%9C%D7%98%D7%AA/
Regarding reducing the population - you can start by reducing the growth rate, which in our country can be done in a simple way - canceling child benefits.
All the "green" proposals today are nothing more than ridiculous and poor "proper signals". The young Europeans are rooting for one, 15-year-old Greta, who is going to sail in the coming days on a yacht to the USA to confuse the minds of Americans about global warming and the CO2 emissions caused by flying. She of course went on a yacht with her father to save on CO2 emissions. just what? At the end of this heroic voyage, six members of the yacht's crew will be forced to return from the US to Europe by... flight. Even if you ignore the CO2 emissions caused by the sailing in the yacht, 3 times more CO2 has already been emitted because of this return trip.
Most politically correct and postmodernist chatter is like this. A pointless swan and a real possibility.
To Lorem Ipsum
I use a simple calculation of the average total renewable resources per year divided by the number of people across the country and wonder of wonders - we consume much more than what is "allocated" for the year. Humanity also existed when it numbered no more than a billion individuals, but then it did not threaten the other creatures on the globe with extinction. True, the transition to balance will be problematic and painful. This extinction eventually threatens our race as well, due to the imbalance in nature. We are not familiar with the fission of thorium in molten salt, I just hope you are right and the process is possible and safe. I know that even with today's technologies, energy needs can be met with the help of renewable energies. As you gently expressed "you just have to move your ass". Going into space, i.e. establishing a sustainable settlement on another planet? In my estimation, light years away (I know, distance-not time). If this happens first, the wealthy will flee and leave the plebeians to fry on the planet...
to unite"
It's very easy to talk, but if you're going to be unemployed I want to see you oppose the growth that will create jobs.
Of course you have to invest. But you have to invest wisely, and in the right technology. The right technology for producing energy on Earth and beyond is molten salt thorium fission reactors (MSR and LFTR). It is possible to reach technological maturity of this within 10 years if we move our ass and initiate something on the scale of the Manhattan or Apollo projects. Then it will be possible to produce such reactors in a factory like ships are produced in a shipyard - and transport them to their destination. Taking ridiculous steps like reducing the population is dangerous and stupid, especially when we are on the verge of going into space. There are nations that are shrinking even today, and they are facing collective suicide - culturally and finally also physically.
The economy that is based on growth, is based on population growth, on an increase in the standard of living of the consumers and on the ever-increasing utilization of natural resources. In order to increase profits, at least from my personal experience and other people's, products become less and less sustainable.
Population growth must stop, using sociological and economic incentives, because there is simply no choice.
A completely new economic thinking is needed, when growth is more possible in the world of services and less in the world of physical products, so that we don't pollute, consume the species that are still left, fill up with garbage (more than now). Without holistic thinking (society / economy / science / ecology) we will not be able to survive.