Leaders | Hard truths about green growth

How misfiring environmentalism risks harming the world’s poor

The trade-off between development and climate change is impossible to avoid

A hungry boy walks in the shadow of wind turbines
Illustration: Hokyoung Kim

THANK GOODNESS for the enthusiasts and the obsessives. If everyone always took a balanced view of everything, nothing would ever get done. But when campaigners’ worldview seeps into the staid apparatus of policymaking and global forums, bad decisions tend to follow. That, unfortunately, is especially true in the world of climate change.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Hard truths about green growth”

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