Kick-Off Workshop of MPIfG Partner Group “Challenges of Green Growth” in Chile

Universidad Diego Portales (UDP) in Santiago de Chile hosted the kick-off workshop to the MPIfG Partner Group “Challenges of Green Growth” from January 24 to 25 this year. The event was attended by twenty-four scholars, among them five from the MPIfG, who took part in several roundtables and panels discussing different aspects of the green economy. In the opening roundtable, “The Challenges of Green Growth,” MPIfG director Lucio Baccaro presented a research framework that considers climate change from a growth-theory perspective. Baccaro outlined in his presentation how growth is necessary for the political sustainability of the green transition, a stance clearly contrary to so-called de-growth approaches. Without growth, he explained, the political conflicts that the transition to a green economy inevitably brings with it are impossible to resolve, not least because the losers in the process need to be compensated. Other issues that were addressed in the total of five panels included the financial foundations of green growth models, green growth and decarbonization strategies in the global north and global south, and the politics of green growth models in the periphery.

The Max Planck-UDP Group on the Challenges of Green Growth is led by Aldo Madariaga and began its work in September of last year. Central to its research is exploring the extent to which the green economy and associated ecological transformation can drive economic growth in emerging markets, and the political background to green growth and stagnation processes.