The fight against climate change is already one of the biggest challenges for the world economy.
The large economic blocs are accelerating the pace to develop technologies to do without fossil fuels, multilateral institutions are rearming themselves so that
green
investments reach impoverished countries and even central banks include climate in their objectives.
But this was not the case in the 1970s, when the world only thought about having cheap oil again to escape inflation and continue growing without limits.
At that time, Partha Dasgupta (Dhaka, Bangladesh, 81 years old) was already beginning to investigate the integration of the environment within the economy.
Dasgupta, who attends EL PAÍS by videoconference from London, has just now received the Frontiers of Knowledge in Economics award, awarded each year by the BBVA Foundation, for his pioneering studies in a now key area.
Dasgupta admits that for years he felt alone, especially among economists.
But his task went further.
“Most of my thinking over the last 30 years has been trying to learn about ecology properly,” he explains.
And that has allowed him, he says, to meet and make friends with “some of the greatest environmentalists of our time.”
"We work together.
I taught them a little economics, but they taught me ecology in a very serious way.
And, in some ways, I have gone deeper into that field than others.
And there I think he is right: I have felt alone.
But it hasn't bothered me.
The real pleasure is in research, in trying to understand something and creating a fusion between two fields to create a new way of thinking.
“It has been very lonely, but I have had a great time,” says this economist from the University of Cambridge.
The professor has been awarded for laying the foundations of so-called
sustainable development
, a term that has quickly given way to other more forceful ones such as the fight against climate change or the decarbonization of the economy.
And this battle occurs at a time of maximum concern in multilateral organizations, such as the IMF or the World Bank, over mediocre economic progress.
Dasgupta warns, however, that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), whose growth has become one of the main objectives of the economic policy of any country, is not suitable for everything.
“GDP is a very predatory measure.
We take things from nature and turn them into final goods.
And the market value of the final goods is what is recorded,” he maintains.
He gives an example.
“Suppose you cut down a bunch of trees in a forest.
Then they go to the factory and the pieces become furniture thanks to human labor and machinery.
The market value enters the GDP calculation.
But the fact is that the trees have been lost.
And that is not accounted for,” he adds.
“We should not use GDP for any debate on sustainability.
“It is a very bad idea,” he emphasizes.
Those trees, in reality, are part of the
stock
variable .
Dasgupta gives another example: “You can have a salary of 1,000 pounds a month.
And you have savings of 2,000 pounds.
If instead of 1,000 pounds each month you spend about 1,200, that cushion will disappear.”
How to calibrate it in the case of natural resources?
In an approach to this debate, the United Nations estimated that between 1992 and 2014 natural resources per capita decreased by 40%.
“Part of it is due to population growth, but much of it has to do with the deterioration in the use of non-renewable resources.
That tells us exactly what we have done in the development process,” he says.
Economics comes into play, he continues, when this degradation must be quantified or valued.
And there are two problems there.
The first is that economic analyzes—and hence his loneliness for years—barely take this damage into account.
And second, its value cannot be measured in market terms, but is “social.”
“A lot of work has been done on it.
For example, with carbon emissions,” he recalls.
Administrations detect the social cost of these emissions, look for their effects and try to put a price on them.
“It is not a market price.
The market does not exist or they try to create markets.
The government says that we are going to allow only a total amount of emissions per year and rights to that can be bought and sold,” he maintains.
The award comes at a time when the
green
debate is highly topical.
The European Union has set its sights on reducing carbon dioxide emissions to zero by 2050, but that path seems arduous.
The measures to achieve this challenge have provoked citizen protests, now in the countryside, in France, Spain and Poland.
Dasgupta excuses himself.
“I'm not a good person to respond to him.
“It is a disagreement between States and farmers that is not very different from that between countries when negotiating emissions or biodiversity.”
“Everyone is trying to minimize their amount of effort and pass it on to someone else,” he explains.
In part, the economist believes that this crisis has a lot to do with an idea of the World Bank that became popular during the 1980s: making policies so that everyone wins.
Or in its modern version, the famous
win-win
.
“It is possible that to protect nature we may have to reduce our income level.
And that is very difficult to accept.
We want it all: income growth and protection of nature.
And both things may not be possible,” he concludes.
Follow all the
Economy
and
Business
information on
and
X
, or in our
weekly newsletter
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I am already a subscriber
_