"The global economy must be radically transformed to stop it rewarding pollution and waste, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres has warned. Speaking to the Guardian after the UN hosted a meeting of leading global economists, Guterres said humanity's future required the urgent overhaul of the world's existing accounting systems he said were driving the planet to the brink of disaster."
"We must place true value on the environment and go beyond gross domestic product as a measure of human progress and wellbeing. Let us not forget that when we destroy a forest, we are creating GDP. When we overfish, we are creating GDP. For decades, politicians and policymakers have prioritised growth as measured by GDP as the overarching economic goal."
"Guterres said: Moving beyond gross domestic product is about measuring the things that really matter to people and their communities. GDP tells us the cost of everything, and the value of nothing. Our world is not a gigantic corporation. Financial decisions should be based on more than a snapshot of profit and loss."
The current global accounting system rewards pollution and waste by counting environmental destruction as economic output. GDP increases when forests are cleared or fish stocks are depleted, incentivising short-term growth over long-term planetary health. Endless GDP-focused growth exacerbates climate breakdown, biodiversity loss and widening inequality. Moving beyond GDP requires measures that capture human wellbeing, sustainability and equity rather than only monetary transactions. A UN convening of senior economists proposed a new dashboard of metrics to assess economic success, reflecting shocks since 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic and addressing the triple planetary crisis driving urgency for systemic economic transformation.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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