Fighting the climate crisis need not mean halting economic growth
The shift to a green economy can spur innovation and prosperity if we change the quality of growth
It is clear: we are living beyond our planet's limits. Unless we change something, the consequences will be dire. Should that something be our focus on economic growth?
The climate emergency represents the most salient risk we face and we are already getting a glimpse of the costs. And in "we", I include Americans. The US, where a major political party is dominated by climate-change deniers, is the highest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases and the only country refusing to adhere to the 2015 Paris climate agreement. So there is a certain irony in the fact that the US has also become one of the countries with the highest levels of property damage associated with extreme weather events such as floods, fires, hurricanes, droughts and bitter cold.
Related: Public borrowing is cheap but ramping up debt is not without risk | Kenneth Rogoff
Continue reading...