Economic growth, climate change, biodiversity loss: An ethical approach to breaking this deadly chain

Both the input and output of economic growth degrade ecosystems. Economic growth – the increase in the production and consumption of goods and services – is fueled by biophysical inputs, such as fossil fuel, timber, and minerals, and degrades associated ecosystems. Economic growth also creates waste like methyl mercury, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide, that degrade ecosystem function, like ocean acidification related to enhanced carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Economic growth is the principal source of increased climate change, and climate change is a primary cause of biodiversity loss. Therefore, economic growth is a prime catalyst of biodiversity loss. Since people desire economic growth for divergent reasons, some for the increased accumulation of wealth, others for basic needs, how we limit economic growth is an ethical problem. An equity-based approach to climate-change policy that caps economic growth in the most polluting economies will lessen human impact on biodiversity. When coupled with a cap-and-trade mechanism, such an approach can also provide a powerful tool for redistribution of wealth to lesser polluting countries. Such an equity-based framework promises to be more inclusive, and therefore more effective, because those countries that pollute less will be given an incentive to participate.