Conclusion: Towards a Different Future
摘要
This chapter is neither a manifesto nor a recipe for how to solve all of the challenges and threats outlined in the preceding chapters, but it does ask the question: Can decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation work as a long-term strategy? It provides a review of the various challenges that have been posited to the global obsession with growth, clearly in the context of projections of large increases in population and expectations of improved standards of living, particularly in the developing world. This chapter outlines the movements that have evolved promoting green growth, degrowth, post-growth, ecomodernism and ‘Doughnut Economics’ and their position in the models that have been referred to in IPCC and EC reports. Reference is also made to the race to ‘net zero’ and the importance of renewables and nuclear power in this context. The question is left hanging: will the influence and drive emanating from the UN and International Energy Agency, as well as public opinion, provide sufficient pressure for governments and large corporations globally to adopt the necessary policies and strategies to save the planet?