I’m markedly less optimistic about the opportunities for ‘green development’ for much of the Global South. A lack of both capital and know-how cuts down leverage considerably, even before getting to the issues of corruption and elite capture familiar to the extractive industries. The one thing we’ve got in abundance, cheap unskilled labor, couldn’t be facing stronger headwinds: enormous advances in automation, geopolitical tensions pushing for “friendshoring”, the increasing political power of workers leading to more mercantilist, protectionist policies everywhere. There may be a few tactical successes here and there, but most poor countries seem likely to be both cut off from global supply chains and the energy revolution, while still unable to use fossil fuels to power their growth.
I think it’s important for us to sit with the thought that economic development may be a mirage. That there won’t be a plausible path to prosperity within our children’s lifetimes.
I recently read economic historian Tirthankar Roy's excellent book "Monsoon Economies" in which he discusses how the geography and climatic conditions of India were an impediment to economic growth, made worse by political and social conditions, even before global warming was a concern.
One thing that it made me believe was that climate change can certainly become a binding constraint on economic growth.
I’m markedly less optimistic about the opportunities for ‘green development’ for much of the Global South. A lack of both capital and know-how cuts down leverage considerably, even before getting to the issues of corruption and elite capture familiar to the extractive industries. The one thing we’ve got in abundance, cheap unskilled labor, couldn’t be facing stronger headwinds: enormous advances in automation, geopolitical tensions pushing for “friendshoring”, the increasing political power of workers leading to more mercantilist, protectionist policies everywhere. There may be a few tactical successes here and there, but most poor countries seem likely to be both cut off from global supply chains and the energy revolution, while still unable to use fossil fuels to power their growth.
I think it’s important for us to sit with the thought that economic development may be a mirage. That there won’t be a plausible path to prosperity within our children’s lifetimes.
I recently read economic historian Tirthankar Roy's excellent book "Monsoon Economies" in which he discusses how the geography and climatic conditions of India were an impediment to economic growth, made worse by political and social conditions, even before global warming was a concern.
One thing that it made me believe was that climate change can certainly become a binding constraint on economic growth.