In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, countries around the world face an extraordinary conundrum. Unemployment is at record levels, and poverty is on the rise. Most governments believe the only tool they have at their disposal to address this crisis is to do everything possible to rev up the engines of economic growth in desperate hope of creating new jobs and restoring livelihoods.
This might seem reasonable enough at face value; after all, we’ve become accustomed to believing that growth is the cure to virtually every economic woe we encounter. But in attempting to solve one crisis, this approach makes it much more difficult to address another, more pressing emergency—the crisis of climate breakdown.
