Daniel Stähr on language and climate change  Climate Protection or Growth – Is That Really the Question?

Daniel Stähr is outraged: politicians and business leaders continue to suggest that we must choose between measures to combat climate change and prosperity. This prevents effective climate policy from being taken – and allows the climate catastrophe to loom ever closer.

One of the greatest challenges facing humanity is climate change and the resulting climate catastrophe. However, public discourse continues to be dominated by arguments that prevent measures from being taken to combat this life-threatening development.

False dichotomy

Influential politicians and economists like to claim that we have to choose between climate protection and economic growth: if we want to reduce global warming in the future, we have to forego prosperity today.

Describing the obvious climate change and the dangers of a climate catastrophe in this way is bizarre. For one thing, it ignores how unevenly distributed the devastating consequences of the drastically changing global climate are. Most of the countries hardest hit are in the southern hemisphere and are already among the poorest countries in the world. The human suffering caused by the climate catastrophe there cannot be offset by any considerations of growth in Europe.

But even for the rich countries of the global North, it is a fatal misconception that a choice between prosperity and climate is necessary. In the long term, the two go hand in hand, and the longer we hesitate, wherever we are, the more painful and expensive the consequences will be.

The climate policy thesis that we are forced to choose between a life of abundance and measures to protect the climate that prevent prosperity has prominent advocates, foremost among them William Nordhaus. The American economist was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2018. Among other things, his climate models show that the optimal global warming is supposedly 4 degrees Celsius. Up to this mark, the costs that would have to be incurred to keep the climate catastrophe in check simply exceed the damage that would be prevented. The fact that 4 degrees of global warming would render large parts of the planet de facto uninhabitable is of no interest to the economist and his model calculations – saving the planet is a technocratic efficiency consideration.

Technological Openness, Green Growth and Other Linguistic Tricks

In politics, too, it has long been fashionable to use linguistic tricks to shirk responsibility. One of the most popular narratives is that of green growth. The former chancellor Olaf Scholz, for example, promised that the ‘green transformation’ would bring Germany a second economic miracle. Green growth is an enticing promise because it conveys the idea that we don't have to make any serious changes. We simply replace dirty brown or grey electricity from coal, oil and natural gas with sustainable energy sources, and voilà! Climate catastrophe averted. Unfortunately, it's not that easy.

The language used constantly suggests that everything will somehow turn out fine. This is particularly evident in one of the FDP's favourite words: technological openness. But to claim that if the state were to withdraw and give market forces free rein, solutions would fall from the sky, borders on denial of reality. Even if one is convinced that the capitalist market economy is capable of producing innovations that effectively combat the climate catastrophe, there is no indication that it can do so quickly enough. This is not least because global oil producers are doing everything they can to prevent a green transformation. Whatever the cost.

The Climate Catastrophe Will Not Wait

The markets will not save humanity from climate catastrophe. Instead, we need governments to take responsibility and find a way to distribute the costs of climate protection fairly. In plain language, this means that those who have benefited most from the destruction of our planet must also pay the most to save it.

One could argue that markets will not stop the climate catastrophe, but neither will a change in language. And that is true, of course. It will obviously not be enough to simply adapt our language habits to the crisis. But how we talk about the climate, our economic system and the connection between the two can determine what solutions we can even imagine. Language that adequately reflects the severity of the situation must be the first step if we as democratic societies want to prevent the worst from happening. Otherwise, sooner or later, the climate catastrophe will dictate what our lives look like.
 

September 2025