Economic Growth In Rich Countries A Recipe For Climate Breakdown, Injustice, Study Says

(Photo : Getty Images/Sakis Mitrolidis)

A recent study said that the notable economic development in developed countries is considered as a recipe for climate breakdown and injustice.

Experts have explained that pursuing "green growth" in high-income countries will not be enough to meet the emission reductions that are required under the Paris Agreement.

Nothing green

According to Jefim Vogel, lead author of the study, there is nothing green when it comes to economic growth in high-income countries. Vogel said this was a recipe for climate breakdown as well as climate injustice.

The expert said that calling such highly insufficient emission reductions "green growth" would be misleading, noting that it is essentially greenwashing.

The study explained that the growth, in order to be legitimately considered as green, should be consistent with the climate targets and fairness principles of the Paris Agreement. However, it found out that high-income countries have not achieved anything close to this, and are highly unlikely to achieve it in the future.

According to the United Nations Climate Change, the Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty about climate change. The said agreement was adopted by 196 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, France, on December 12, 2015 and it was entered into force on November 4, 2016.

Officials said that its overarching goal is to hold "the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels" and pursue efforts "to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels."

Moreover, in recent years, world leaders have emphasized need to limit global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius by the end of this century.

This is because the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had indicated that crossing the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts as well as heatwaves and rainfall.

Scientists pointed out that the continued economic growth in high-income countries has been at odds with the main goal of averting catastrophic climate breakdown and upholding fairness principles that aims to protect development prospects in lower-income countries.

In other words, the study underscored that further economic growth in high-income countries could be considered as harmful, dangerous, and unjust.

Moreover, the study had identified 11 high-income countries that achieved "absolute decoupling, which is defined as decreasing CO2 emissions alongside increasing gross domestic product (GDP) between 2013 and 2019.

These countries were Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Reduce emissions

Researchers said that CO2 emissions were tightly coupled to economic activity as shown by the GDP.

When the GDP increases, emissions will also rise.

Recently, several high-income countries have managed to "decouple" the two to some extent as they tend to reduce their emissions while increasing their GDP. This process is termed as "absolute decoupling."

Other countries still need even greater accelerations of their efforts regarding emission reductions.

Experts said that Belgium, Australia, Austria, Canada, and Germany need to reduce their emissions more than 30 times faster than they did between 2013 and 2019 under absolute decoupling.