There’s no such thing as green growth:
Limits of a growth-centric approach to development
Over the past two decades, news and media has bombarded us with stories of the alarming impacts of climate change, from disastrous floods, famine-inducing droughts to heat waves and loss of biodiversity. In fact, climate change dominates most of our environmental concerns today. This concern has led to revising the approach to development.
Enter sustainable development and green growth, which are heralded as the saviors of the climate change problem. These approaches argue that economic growth and environmental sustainability can be decoupled. In other words, through improvements in technologies, efficiencies in resource use, improvements in productivity, and renewable energy replacing fossil fuels, it is possible to grow the economy whilst negating the impacts that a growing economy has on the environment and mitigating the impacts of climate change.
But herein lies the problem. Both approaches are still growth-centric and net growth still means net increase in emissions.
If we look at the world’s carbon intensity (CO2 emissions per unit of GDP), we see an improvement from 769 grams of CO2 per 2011 dollar (gCO2/$) in 1990 to 326 gCO2/$ in 2014. In that same time period however, net CO2 emissions increased from 22 million kt to 36 million kt. Even if we normalize this with population, we’ll find that emission per capita has also increased from 4.189 to 4.97.
The point is that even if emissions per unit of GDP improved, GDP increases by a greater amount, resulting in a net increase in CO2 emissions. If green growth is to work and if climate change is to be addressed, we need to recognize the limits of a growth-centric paradigm, and acknowledge that net growth cannot be entirely green. Sure, green growth can improve resource efficiency and increase carbon intensity but it cannot be a long-term solution to our current environmental problems — unless we put some limits on resource extraction, prevent wastage and improve the distribution and equity of produced goods.
The Decoupling Dilemma
Decoupling argues that through increasing energy efficiency and resource efficiency, it will be possible to continue growing GDP without increasing resource and energy consumption, and without increasing carbon dioxide emissions. But to decouple economic growth from its negative impacts on resources and the environment is a myth.
One of the reasons we cannot decouple economic growth from GHG emissions, is because even greener solutions require production. Substituting carbon-intensive energy with cleaner, carbon-neutral energy does not free our economies of their dependence on finite resources. Whether it is solar energy or wind energy, we will need resources to produce solar panels, batteries, or wind turbines. Not to mention the emissions from production, transport of materials, installation, maintenance and dismantling, and disposal.
Decoupling would be possible if there was an infinite resource available but presently even renewable energy sources make use of finite resources. And as long as finite resources are exploited, they will be exhausted. There can be no sustainable use of a resource if there is net positive exploitation since the stock is finite.
The Rebound effect and Jevon’s Paradox
While all green growth approaches use resources, not all of them have the same environmental footprint. The carbon footprint of a solar photovoltaic (PV) panel is about 60–180 grams of carbon dioxide-equivalent per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated (gCO2e/kWh), which is significantly much lower than fossil fuels (800+). While this might suggest that we can almost decouple growth from the environment, we disregard one important thing: the rebound effect.
The rebound effect argues that improvements in resource efficiency will drive down prices, causing demands and hence consumption to rise. This increase in consumption can undermine any positive gains from more efficient practices, leading to Jevon’s Paradox. The Jevons paradox occurs when the rebound effect is greater than 100%, exceeding the original efficiency gains. The rebound effect and Jevon’s Paradox were first described by William Stanley Jevons in his book The Coal Question, where he observed that the invention of a more efficient steam engine in Britain meant that coal became more economically viable. This ultimately led to increased coal demand and greatly increased coal consumption.
In terms of green growth, we see the rebound effect play out in many ways. For example, many economists have observed that consumers tend to travel more when cars are more fuel efficient, which can sometimes lead to an overall increase in demand and consumption of fuel. Similarly, with energy-saving light-bulbs replacing traditional bulbs, people may keep them on longer.
One can argue that rebound effects are usually small. However, a study done by researchers at Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey, UK found that rebound effects in GHG terms, could be quite significant for measures affecting vehicle fuel use (25–65%) and very large for measures that reduce food waste(66–106%). Thus, rebound effects need to be considered when proposing green solutions to ensure that these effects can be minimized to ensure that the full benefits of resource efficiency can be reaped.
The negative externalities of carbon-centric approaches
Another current problem with our present approach to green growth is the singular focus on reduction of carbon or GHG emissions. This single-objective focus can sometimes derail us from taking more holistic actions that are overall environmentally friendly and sustainable. Green solutions should be holistic, looking at the overall environmental footprint, not just the carbon footprint.
Let’s take the example of the use of solar powered pumps in agriculture. Solar powered pumps can replace electricity-powered or diesel-powered pumps to pump groundwater for irrigation. The availability and cost of electricity or diesel will no longer act as a limiting constraint and poor farmers will no longer need to pay for fuel. But as the marginal cost of pumping decreases, farmers will have little incentive to pump less. Thus, with solar powered pumps can come indiscriminate groundwater pumping which is a big problem in places like Gujrat, where this seemingly “green” solution can threaten the long-term sustainability of aquifers. Such rippling effects from introducing “green” options should always be considered when proposing solutions.
Another example of the externalities from introducing green solutions is evident when considering the impacts of solar panels on soil and vegetation. A study of researchers from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology of the University of Lancaster studied what happens to soil and vegetation below the solar panels. After monitoring the plants in the large Swindon solar park for about a year, the scientists noticed that, below the panels, the temperature was on average 5 degrees lower than the rest of the surface. This shading effect causes a change in the climate that can damage the growth of some plants.
Not discounting that renewable energy has undeniable benefits over fossil fuels, one should be mindful of considering externalities on the entire environment so that the right kind of policies are put into place to mitigate or avoid such externalities as described above.
Weeding out the Green from the Ungreen
As someone who works in a green growth organization, I regularly meet donors, investors and businesses who lack an understanding of true sustainability and green growth. Sometimes, their efforts can come off as disingenuous.
What do I mean by that? Many businesses see “going green” as a business opportunity to increase consumption and reduce costs, not to improve the environment or address the resource consumption problem. This leads to defensive consumption, i.e an increase in consumption due to climate change. In fact, climate change can be good for certain businesses. Insurance companies are flourishing as more people buy insurance against floods and droughts. Companies that sell meters or recycling plants are making more money now. Restaurants selling green options are making more money.
Green approaches can also lead to increased consumerism. A market research study done by the University of Toronto found that people who are going green, were mostly doing it to be trendy or fashionable. This is often dubbed as “conspicuous conservation.” Moreover, many people tend to increase spending on eco-goods, but these acts are not “green”. The idea that consumerism and shopping should be a way to express your values and achieve social good is problematic and goes against what “green” is trying to achieve.
As green becomes trendier and more ubiquitous, it’s important to ensure that it doesn’t end up increasing overall consumption and production, which is the purpose of going green in the first place.
Technology can hurt us — or help us
During the last century, technology has solved a host of problems for mankind: curing diseases, increasing food production, speeding up transport, and providing us with information and entertainment in quantities and varieties no one could previously have imagined. It’s only natural to believe that technology will be able to solve climate change.
The only problem is technology depends on production, and in general, production uses resources, which only adds to the problem. One of the key ways why technology could hurt us is through increasing consumption. Improved technologies can lead to increased consumption overall, at times off-setting the gains from innovative technology. Moreover, technologies may center our thinking on financial investment and industrial production, reinforcing the need for energy and consumption.
Certainly, technology can help us improve industrial processes to become cleaner and more energy efficient. Moreover, as we reduce our rate of consumption, technology can assist in our efforts. But it cannot be a silver bullet solution to the problem. Technologies will only work in addressing our climate efforts when we work side by side in reducing consumption.
Rather than using technology to solve a problem of consumption, its best to consume less to begin with. In the waste sector, there is a mantra called “Reduce, reuse, and recycle. Technology will allow us to reuse and recycle, but the best — and greenest — solution is to reduce waste altogether. This can be applied to any resource problem. Instead of trying to build plants to recycle plastic, we should consider reducing overall plastics. This goes for all kinds of produced goods.
Recognizing the limits of green growth
There’s no escaping the obvious conclusion of this article: To address climate change, we need to go beyond technology and carbon-centric approaches, and ultimately reduce consumption (or rather, over-consumption). For certain places, this may mean reducing all forms of economic growth — grey or green.
This doesn’t mean shutting down economic activity. But it does mean putting cuts on sectors that are damaging to the environment and shrinking those that are unnecessary for human flourishing. It also means we improve distribution of what is produced, because we are currently producing in excess.
Current growth models continue to associate value with systematic exploitation of natural systems and promoting consumption and consumerism, albeit in a more efficient and productive way. They perpetuate the belief that human progress and well-being should be determined by GDP. Instead, a green growth approach should recognize that while absolute decoupling of the environment with economic growth is not possible, recoupling the goals of well-being to a healthy environment is.
