Biodiversity

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, on getting this debate and on her excellent introduction. When I first saw the title of the report, The Economics of Biodiversity, I was a little conflicted, because there is the overwhelming sense that our economic system has always hugely undervalued the natural world, which has led to huge damage and very poor decision-making. The second feeling is one of concern that, by looking at the natural world through the lens of economics, we risk repeating exactly the same mistakes that got us into this mess. The answer is not more banking, more financial engineering and more big business.

I was elated to see that the Dasgupta Review recognised exactly that; in fact, the report almost reads like a Green Party publication in its criticisms of the status quo, so much so that the Government have glossed over some of its biggest sections. In particular, they seem completely to have ignored Dasgupta’s criticism of gross national product as an economic measure:

“The contemporary practice of using Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to judge economic performance is based on a faulty application of economics.”


It goes on to say that GDP ignores

“the degradation of the natural environment”

and

“is wholly unsuitable for appraising investment projects and identifying sustainable development.”

Perhaps even more importantly, it states that

“in recent decades eroding natural capital has been precisely the means the world economy has deployed for enjoying what is routinely celebrated as ‘economic growth’”.

This has been obvious to Greens for decades; it is one of their foundational principles that sets green philosophy apart from other political parties and movements. Politicians have to end their obsession with economic growth and understand that we are on a finite planet with finite resources.

My question and challenge to the Minister is: what are the Government doing to replace GDP with proper economic measures that do not make trashing our planet look like economic success?