Scientists tell us that earth is overshooting its planetary boundaries at a rate far quicker than the average person would believe. And the most rapid change is occurring in those parts of the world that have the least resources and capacity to manage the effects. This situation becomes rapidly compounded by the significant challenges of population growth, urbanisation, unemployment and rising socioeconomic inequality. In this light, it is sometimes thought that the notion of green growth is simply an attempt to drive a left-wing agenda that has the redistribution of wealth as its central objective. The argument goes that the current capitalist system is out of control, with no moral compass, that the economic steamroller needs to be stopped dead in its tracks, and that nothing short of a revolution will save us. When sketched out in this way the case for green growth becomes polarised, with shrill doomsday enviro-socio-activists on one end, and rabid free-market capitalists on the ...
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