Every person who is somewhat interested in world affairs is familiar with this discussion from their own circle of friends: can the earth only be saved for mankind by downsizing – or could it also succeed with green growth? Do we need to change our behavior, or just reinvent what we consume? And to what extent do these two poles – renunciation or new, green growth – actually exclude each other?
The UN Biodiversity Summit COP15 is currently taking place in Montréal. Current classifications and analyzes by my colleagues Tina Baier and Thomas Krumenacker on this important conference can be found here. On the fringes of the meeting, the discussion about growth among the highest-ranking was repeated. UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated right at the beginning of the COP that mankind “with an unrestrained appetite for unbridled and unequal economic growth” had become a “weapon of mass destruction” for the biodiversity of the earth. Meanwhile, Elisabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said at a summit press conference last Monday that she did not believe there was a conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation.
What do you think?
But perhaps part of the problem lies precisely in such a question. Can such a fundamental question about the right path into the future really be a question of faith, especially from the head of a biodiversity conference?
Perhaps there is more diplomatic realism than “belief” behind Mrema’s statement. Because in Montréal, the dilemma of a global conflict that has been smoldering for a long time, for which solutions are needed more and more urgently, is being negotiated: How do you deal with the fact that rich countries, whose prosperity is based on decades of exhausting the growth imperative, are now in the interests of climate protection and species protection urge other, poorer countries to give up this growth? So what the rich countries have been doing for centuries – even though it would be much more comfortable from their prosperity base to limit growth (which unfortunately they are all still a long way from)?
The more ambitious the protection goals for nature are, the more the associated restrictions ultimately affect the economic development of countries that have not yet exploited their nature on a large scale. Shouldn’t these countries (in addition to financial equalization mechanisms, which are also being fought over at the COP) at least be given the opportunity for “green growth”?
The discussion is not easy, neither in a circle of friends nor at a biodiversity conference. And in the end, despite all the exclusivity, at first glance it will end up being a small, laborious, much too tedious, but in the best case scenario somehow sustainable solution in the middle. That shouldn’t sound soothing, because it may well be that the mass extinction can no longer be stopped with such a middle way. But a jointly decided path would still be: a jointly decided path.
(This text is from the weekly Newsletter climate friday you here for free can order.)