Climate change, growth, and sustainability

Can climate change be successfully addressed if contemporary societies continue to pursue economic growth as a dominant priority? Although economic growth has been one of the core drivers of rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, some observers argue that limiting warming to no more than 2 °C in the future need not have a significant impact on the growth in GDP. “Green growth†arguments of this kind, which have been politically important in making the case for climate action, are critically assessed in this chapter. Future possibilities cannot be predicted with certainty, but available evidence suggests that limiting warming to no more than 2 °C is unlikely if economic growth continues to be such a dominant social priority. A greater role for an ethic of sufficiency and efforts to make contemporary societies less dependent on growth thus deserve to be a high priority.