Limits to green growth[Des limites à la croissance verte]

Proposed as a response to the unsustainability of current brown growth, the concept of green growth is being debated, in particular from the point of view of its feasibility. This article aims to contribute to this debate on the basis of a reasoning combining (i) the concept of creative destruction and (ii) the distinction between environmental limits, physical limits in the long term and technological limits in the short to medium term. The combination of environmental and physical limits means that indefinite (even green) growth in a finite world is impossible. In the medium term, because of an impact effect (due to pollution) and a crowding-out effect (which diverts capital away from the sector producing this factor), technological limits are likely not only to slow down growth but also to bring the economy into decline (at least transitorily). While innovations continually push back the technological limits (with diminishing returns due to physical limits), they also exacerbate the contradictions between growth and environmental limits. Far from being the solution, innovations are also the source of the problems because they are at the heart of the creative destruction process that underlies growth. Given the technological limits and given the urgency of the multiple global environmental issues, a transition from current brown growth to green growth in the coming decades does not seem possible. To replace brown growth, the alternative is not between green growth and degrowth, but between undergone degrowth and chosen degrowth.