A Critical Appraisal of the Concepts of Sustainable Growth, Decoupling and Decarbonization
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2019) | Viewed by 340
Special Issue Editor
Interests: water–energy–food nexus in relation to sustainable development goals; multi-criteria analysis of sustainability; multi-scale integrated analysis of social-ecological systems; energy policy; alternative energy technologies; bioeconomics; urban metabolism
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The idea that humankind can decouple economic growth—defined as growth of the gross domestic product (GDP)—from growth in environmental impacts, and notably greenhouse gas emissions, is widespread. Indeed, both “sustainable growth” (or “green growth”) and “quick decarbonization” are major pillars of national and pan-national policies and initiatives, especially in regard to the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Agreement.
Whereas many modelers—especially those using economic models—see no problems in achieving decoupling or a quick decarbonization of the economy in less than 30 years, others—those studying the interaction of the economy with the environment in biophysical terms—consider this a mission impossible (techno-phantasies).
I invite paper contributions that critically reflect on the assumption that: (i) human ingenuity (innovation) and the market (globalization) can achieve full decoupling of economic growth from natural resource use (including sinks); and (ii) in spite of the scale and extent of the required changes, full decarbonization can be achieved in 30 years. Possible topics include: (i) How effective and realistic are the solutions proposed for sustainable or green growth and/or decarbonisation pathways and transitions toward a zero-emission economy? What is the role of externalization (outsourcing) of energy intensive, labor intensive and/or environmentally unfriendly economic activities to other countries in the proposed solutions and strategies?; and (ii) Considering the existence of internal (i.e., technical, economic and socio-political) and external constraints (i.e., availability of primary sources and primary sinks for the flows of food, energy, water and material metabolized by society), which scenarios should we expect in the next 30 years?
Prof. Mario Giampietro
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- sustainable growth
- decoupling
- decarbonization
- green growth
- externalization
- outsourcing, natural resources
- environmental impact
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