For close to six years, I have been tasked by the United Nations to report back on the world’s most promising solutions to ending poverty. Today I can confidently say that – despite what we’ve been led to believe by politicians, economists, development experts, and even UN institutions – the answer is not to simply stimulate economic growth.
As I made clear in a 2024 report to the UN on how to eradicate poverty beyond growth: while poverty eradication has historically been promised through the “trickling down” or “redistribution” of wealth, economic growth instead often “gushes up” to a privileged few.
We live on a planet that has never been richer. Billionaires saw their fortunes grow by US$2 million a day on average in 2024. Five trillionaires are now expected within a decade. Yet the number of people still living in poverty – around 3.5 billion according to the World Bank – has barely changed since 1990.
The endless quest for growth at all costs, and the relentless consumption and production that accompanies it, is also pushing our planet past its limits. Since 1973, we have been living beyond the biocapacity of the Earth: we consume more resources than are naturally replenished, and we dump into the environment more waste and pollution than ecosystems can absorb.
As I set out in my most recent report to the UN, it is people in poverty that are paying the price for the deadly climate crisis this has created. Over the past three decades, more than 90 per cent of climate-related deaths have occurred in developing countries.
Let’s be clear. The answer to this dilemma is not “green growth” – which promises that economic growth done right can be accompanied by a reduction in its ecological footprint. Even under the best conditions, a growing body of evidence shows that the absolute decoupling of gross domestic product (GDP) from resource use (growing the economy while simultaneously reducing its negative environmental impacts) is impossible. Technological advances simply cannot compensate for the destructive nature of our consumption patterns.
The pursuit of perpetual economic growth is incompatible with life on this planet. And ending poverty cannot continue to be used as an excuse to chase ever-rising GDP, when this endeavour instead pushes people into poorly paid, often dangerous jobs to satisfy the needs of the elite.
