The paper studies two empirical correlations: one between economic growth and environmental impacts, and the other between the lack of economic growth and unemployment. It is demonstrated that, at a global level, economic growth is strongly correlated with environmental impacts, and barriers to fast decoupling are large and numerous. On the other hand, low or negative growth is highly correlated with increasing unemployment in most market economies, and strategies to change this lead to difficult questions and tradeoffs. The coexistence of these two correlations – which have rarely been studied together in the literature on “green growth”, “degrowth” and “a-growth” – justifies ambivalence about growth. To make key environmental goals compatible with full employment, the decoupling of environmental impacts from economic output has to be accompanied by a reduction of dependence on growth. In particular, strategies to tackle unemployment without the need for growth, several of which are studied in this article, need much more attention in research and policy.
The report, The Brazilian Financial System and the Green Economy: Alignment with sustainable development, discusses innovation in public policies, regulatory framework and successful international initiatives capable of speeding up the allocation of resources by the financial system to the Green Economy.
This report is the third OECD review of Iceland’s environmental performance. It evaluates progress towards sustainable development and green growth, with a focus on the environmental aspects of Iceland's energy and tourism policies.
This short publication brings together inspiring Stories of Change from Africa which aim to motivate governments, stakeholders, and the international development community to continue to work together to break down the silos between poverty and environment.