The Green Growth Narrative: Paradigm Shift or Just Spin?

The green growth concept has both strategic and analytical merit. It has strategic merit by turning a negative debate about a costly constraint (on emissions) into a narrative about potentially attractive opportunities. Authors like Barrett believe that this might change the dynamics of the international negotiations.

Analytically, green growth applies a new, richer and more diverse set of economic tools to a burning issue. This has implications on policy design. The ‘green growth’ narrative reinforces, rather than diminishes, the need for collective action. The economic opportunities that green growth may bring do depend on a joint understanding by a sufficiently large number of players that this is the way to go. This makes green growth a classic collective action problem.

Taking advantage of the opportunities also depends on policies being well-designed. The challenge is good regulation not just more regulation, as the debate on multiple climate policies shows. Although the emphasis is on wealth creation, green growth is not about unfettered market solutions. There is much emphasis on market failures and a recognition that markets do not always work. But there is also an appreciation that policies can be counterproductive, too. Public interventions need to take place within transparent, credible and ethically acceptable frameworks of governance and be monitored and assessed by citizens. The need for enlightened government intervention is clear