The Environment and the Economy: From Sustainability to Green Growth

Fundamental concerns over the environment’s capacity to support continued economic growth dates as far back as 1798 when Thomas Malthus first proposed that the finite quantity of agricultural land, and the propensity of humans to reproduce, would impose a constraint on the human population. It seems that different eras have different scarcity factors to contend with. These limiting factors varied from land to oil but defined the flavor of sustainability issues over time. A general consensus emerged which considered an economy that pollutes its rivers, fouls its air and depletes its natural carrying capacities cannot be doing well. Unfortunately, using standard national accounting measures do not reflect this troubling reality. Many new measures have been constructed to quantify sustainability that include: Green GDP, Ecological Footprints, and Demonic Indices, each with its own metrics and problems. Sustainability is compounded by climate change. A few economies are particularly vulnerable to the impact of both climate events and of climate change response measures. The physical vulnerability of these economies is severe in climate sensitive zones, particularly those in low coastal lands, harsh environments, those with fragile ecosystems, those that have key sectors that are highly sensitive to weather and water stress problems. This is further exacerbated by socioeconomic vulnerability as reflected by a high dependence on the production and export of natural resources and other environmentally sensitive commodities. The dependence on natural capital and environmental resources reduces peoples’ resilience and adaptive capacities to the consequences of climate change.  

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