Green growth: decoupling the relationship between the economy and environmental degradation Flashcards
What is coral bleaching? What causes it? What purpose does coral serve in the ocean?
When coral expels the algae it contains, causing it to starve. Coral bleaching is caused by rising sea temperatures. Coral reefs buffer storms and provide a substrate on which other aquatic life, such as fish, can exist.
Explain what neoliberal economics is.
Neoliberal economists believe that laissez-faire capitalism is the most desirable form of economic system.
What is meant by ‘gross domestic product’?
The net value of all goods and services produced by an entity over a particular time period.
What percentage of the US’s domestic wealth was possessed by the 1% of wealthiest househoulds?
36%
What was the cumulative cost of congestion to British GDP in 2014?
18%
What is the hedonic treadmill?
The notion that material gain does not result in sustained increases in happiness.
What percentage of global emissions did the G20 account for in 2015? How did this compare to the fraction of world population they constituted?
82%, the G20 nations contain 70% of the world’s population.
What has been the rate of growth of China’s GDP in recent decades?
7 to 11 per cent.
Define ‘Green growth’.
Increases in GDP that either keep the economy within the safe operating space (w.r.t. climate and resource availability) or move it back towards this space, whilst increasing or maintaining human well-being.
How does Green Growth differ from Sustainable Development?
Sustainable Development attempted to encourage communities to take action through soft policy. Green Growth focuses on economic policies and incentives that support growth.
What changes to economic practice did Charlie suggest in order to promote Green Growth?
Creating policy for a circular economy, to use natural capital accounting when developing national accounts, financial incentives for responsible resource usage (e.g. licenses, carbon taxes, reforestation tax breaks) - these are known as payment for ecosystem services.
Why might Green Growth fail?
- Greenwashing by companies: Hijacking the campaign for marketing purposes, but not actually ‘going green’.
- The approach does not address the fact that current political and economic practices favour indefinite growth on a planet with finite resources.
- Decoupling economic growth from environmental destruction substantially seems slightly incredible.
- Techniques for valuing natural assets are still in their infancy.
