At the UN climate change conference in Dubai at the end of 2023, COP28, world leaders agreed to move away from fossil fuels. It is now imperative that the world advances beyond the traditional fossil fuel metrics of economic output epitomised by GDP if this pledge is to become more than words on paper.
GDP is a measure of material production and consumption. Its continued use as a beacon for economic policies is holding back global sustainable development efforts because policies aimed at tackling climate change focus on the material footprint of consumption and production, while largely ignoring wider behavioural change.
