Green growth

Continued concern over environmental degradation and anthropogenically induced climate change has led policymakers to search for new approaches to economic growth. Green growth has gained policy traction in recent years, notably amongst international organisations and national governments. Green growth asserts that GDP growth is compatible with environmental protection and that it can be decoupled from resource use and carbon emissions. This chapter outlines the rise of green growth as a strategy at the international level, the various definitions used and the reasons why it has been adopted as a policy aim. Criticisms of the green growth approach are examined, including one of its central propositions that growth can be decoupled from environmental damage, together with arguments that more radical changes are needed to address economy-environment tensions. In the conclusions, it is suggested that despite its shortcomings, green growth could provide a transitional strategy towards more substantive change.