Do Ideas of the Green Growth Really Matter in Europe? Spatio-Temporal Analysis
Do Ideas of the Green Growth Really Matter in Europe? Spatio-Temporal Analysis
The green growth is "fostering economic growth and development, while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies" (OECD definition). Economies need green growth because risks to development are rising as growth continues to erode the environment. Green growth is also a pathway to sustainable development. However, it mostly takes into consideration the ecological side of the economic growth. Moreover, the central concept of green growth is decoupling. This theory means that countries strike a balance between economic growth and environmental protection. On the other hand, it is defined as breaking the link between environmental degradation and economic development.
The aim of this study is to analyse each of selected European country’s level of green growth realisation, the impact of spatial interactions on the scale of this growth as well as verifies the decoupling theory in each region separately over years 2004-2012. The taxonomic measure of development, exploratory spatial data analysis (Moran's I spatial autocorrelation statistics) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) are used in this research. The set of the green growth indicators contains, e.g. energy and carbon productivity, waste generation, biodiversity, social context of green growth, sustainable consumption, production, etc. The economic side of the analysis is described by the GDP per capita in constant prices.