This paper presents a new research agenda on climate change and green growth from the perspective of the division of labor in classical economics. The paper covers three major dimensions of green growth (i.e. carbon emissions, environmental protection and material resources use) and some related important topics, as well as the fresh policy implications of the new research agenda. Typical marginal analysis in a given structure of the division of labor suggests that “green” action is a burden to economic development. Therefore, climate negotiation has become a burden-sharing game and has reached a stalemate. New thinking is badly needed to rescue these negotiations and to drive a shift to a new “green growth” paradigm. The proposed new research agenda represents an effort to create a new narrative on climate change and green growth. Because the new research agenda can theoretically predict the possibility that a more competitive structure of the division of labor could be triggered by “green” policy, it has promising policy implications for various important challenges facing us in the 21st century.
The paper appears in the Special Issue: Climate Change and Green Growth: New Thinking.
Green growth cannot succeed without significant changes in the education system and the closely related social division of labor. This paper combines historical evidence and a game-theoretic analysis to study the relation between vocational education and green growth.
Since economic reforms began in 1978, China's urban population has increased by half a billion. Over the next 20 years, cities will likely add another 300 million people through local population growth, migration and the integration of nearby rural areas.
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.
The term 'green jobs' can refer to employment in a narrowly defined set of industries providing environmental services.