6. How Big Are Green Spending Multipliers?

In Chapter 6, N. Batini, M. Di Serio, M. Fragetta, G. Melina, and A. Waldron argue that fixing the twin climate and biodiversity crises is still possible, but it requires stewarding the global economy within limits set by nature. The chapter addresses the question of whether there is “a trade-off between spending on the green economy and an economy’s strength,” and two key results are discussed. First, every dollar spent on green activities can generate more than a dollar’s worth of economic activity, whereas non-green spending returns less than a dollar. Second, for spending categories that are comparable, like renewable versus fossil fuel energy, multipliers on green spending are about double their non-green counterparts. The findings suggest that investments in energy and land/sea use transitions may be economically superior to those offered by supporting economic activities that involve unsustainable ways of producing energy and food.