he ecological and climate crisis the planet Earth is currently mired in is no secret. Nor is this a concern of just a few, who some decades ago were quickly dismissed as alarmists, doomsayers and starry-eyed romantics.

The crisis has just become more evident, both in the form of natural disasters and climate-induced events as well as national and international policy deliberations around it. Every now and then, we come across alarming news stories on glacial melt, land degradation, deforestation, biodiversity losses and erratic weather patterns.

These catastrophes are an outcome of an economic growth and increasing consumption patterns attained through an excessive exploitation of natural resources while disregarding key planetary boundaries. To avoid triggering any collapse, scientists say these boundaries must be respected.

‘Green growth’ is a mainstream response to deal with the crisis. The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 is known to be the site where ‘green growth’ first became a catch phrase. As a matter of fact, in the run-up to the conference, the World Bank, the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations Environmental Programme, had produced reports promoting green growth.

All that needs to be done, argue the proponents of ‘green growth,’ is invest in more efficient technology and introduce the right incentives, simultaneously ensuring economic growth and protecting the planet. Technically, it is aimed at achieving ‘absolute decoupling’ of the gross domestic product from the total use of natural resources.

In the years since the Rio conference, green growth theory has gained ground in the deliberations on environmental governance and policy proposals. As a principal plank of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, it has emerged as a dominant narrative to deal with environmental problems of Earth and the issues of social injustice emanating from them.

On the surface, it appears to be a promising smart solution to a complicated problem. But the critics of ‘green growth’ are of the opinion that it is not the panacea it is being promoted as by the WB, the OECD and the UNEP. They even dispute its viability.

As a theory, green growth is generally criticised for being based more on wishful thinking than on substantive evidence. In theory, advancements in environmental efficiency can help ‘decouple’ economic growth from natural resource use. In the real world, however, such results remain elusive.

A case in point is the introduction of solar tubewells, replacing the ones run by diesel engines, in Pakistan. Their installation is surely reducing the carbon emissions previously generated through the combustion of fossil fuel.

But low, or say, no cost of groundwater extraction has increased the farmers’ demand for irrigation water, exacerbating depletion of water table in the country. In fact, it may be fuelling greater consumption (of scarce water) and pollution.

Proponents of green growth are overly fixated with technological advancements, making us believe that ever-better technology is the solution. Deployment of large-scale technology to capture and store carbon emissions are confidently assumed in any international environmental agreements and scenarios.

However, the potential of these carbon capture and storage technologies has yet to be seen even on a small scale. There is no doubt that technology has a decisive role to play in lowering the environmental burden of production and consumption but green growth overstates it.

Protecting the environment can go hand in hand with making profit is perhaps the most compelling argument put forward for green growth, which denies the existence of a necessary tension between the two goals. For being risk averse, many businesses are hesitant to be first movers on environmental protocols that are likely to undermine their profits.

Some sustainable interventions like conserving certain ecosystems are not attractive investments for the private sector. Meanwhile, some environmental risks such as depletion of certain natural resources or extreme weather might become increasingly attractive to a part of the private sector. Under such circumstances, environmental protection and profit-making by the private sector is least likely to go hand in hand.

Green growth pushes for greener consumption, offering a seemingly common-sense solution to the environmental ills of over consumption. By doing so, it has devolved responsibility from the government and private businesses to ordinary consumers. In other words, it has let the actual culprits go scot-free.

Green consumption is still consumption, having an intrinsic dependence on extraction of natural resources. A positive feeling associated with green consumption is likely to give a moral license to people for indulging in more consumption and hence, putting extra burden on natural resources and different ecosystems.

Considering markets both as part of the problem and solution is a central principle of green growth. According to the proponents of green growth, markets can foster sustainability as long as the decision-making authorities get the numbers right—a tax on carbon, a subsidy on clean energy, a price tag on nature.

Unlike carbon, biodiversity and ecosystems are not amenable to economic valuation and substitution within the markets. Pricing environmental damage is akin to selling permits to corporations for polluting and trashing our planet.

If we are to protect our planet, we need to have an inclusive and effective model for sustainability, attainment of which is not possible without questioning our ever-increasing appetite for economic growth and consumption. We can come up with such a model only with a new perspective: less is more.

The writer is an anthropologist and a development professional