Economic growth is still heating the planet. Is there any way out? Rising GDP continues to mean more carbon emissions and wider damage to the planet.Guardian Can the two be decoupled? Guardian Alex Clark 9 Feb 2026 During Cop30 negotiations in Brazil last year, delegates heard a familiar argument: rising emissions are unavoidable for countries pursuing growth. Since the first Cop in the 1990s, developing nations have had looser reduction targets to reflect the economic gap between them and richer countries, which emitted millions of tonnes of CO2 as they pulled ahead. The concession comes from the idea that an inevitable cost of prosperity is environmental harm. That pattern seems to be holding. In 2024, global GDP per capita reached a new high as did annual carbon emissions. But as climate targets slip and warnings mount that tipping points may already have been crossed, faith in growth for growth’s sake is starting to fracture. This week, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, called for economies to “move beyond GDP” as a measure of progress, warning that the world’s “existing accounting systems” were driving the planet towards disaster. His remarks echo an increasingly influential school of economics, known broadly as “post-growth”, that asks what was once unthinkable: will solving the climate crisis mean learning to live without constant expansion? Post-growth economists often reject GDP in favour of new frameworks that account for environmental damage – such as the “doughnut economics” adopted recently by Amsterdam, or New Zealand’s attempt at a “wellbeing budget”.
The field has its disagreements, particularly over the extent to which countries should actively pursue de-growth measures to scale down their economies. But proponents agree that with the planet pushed to the limit, a radical rethink is needed. “Economic growth has a near mythical status in the affections of economists and politicians. But wishful thinking won’t solve the climate crisis,” said Tim Jackson, professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey and a leading post-growth economist. “Post-growth economics offers us more choice, more realism and more insight into the possibilities for human prosperity. It’s not about returning to the cave but about breaking free from our intellectual prisons.” The roots of post-growth can be traced back to one book, which caused a storm upon its publication in the 1970s. The Limits to Growth was originally published in 1972 and received a major update in the 2000s. It has sold more than 12m copies. It presented a stark analysis using computer modelling: what happens to our economies and societies when we breach the limits of the natural world? While its methodology and conclusions have garnered much academic debate and even controversy, it is viewed by many as a founding environmental text.......open and keep on scrolling https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2026/feb/09/economic-growth-carbon-emissions-impact-global-heating