By Abbas Nazil
The global economy must be fundamentally transformed to stop rewarding pollution and environmental destruction, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has warned.
He said the world’s current accounting systems are driving humanity toward climate and ecological disaster by valuing economic growth over environmental health.
Speaking after the UN hosted a high-level meeting of leading economists, Guterres stressed the urgent need to move beyond gross domestic product as the main measure of progress.
According to him, GDP increases even when forests are destroyed or oceans are overfished, creating the false impression of economic success while natural systems are depleted.
He argued that the environment must be given real value within economic decision-making frameworks.
Guterres said measuring human progress should focus on wellbeing, sustainability and community prosperity rather than short-term financial output.
He described GDP as a tool that calculates the cost of everything but captures the value of nothing that truly matters to people.
For decades, governments across the world have prioritised growth as the central goal of economic policy.
Critics now say this endless pursuit of expansion on a planet with limited resources is worsening climate change, biodiversity loss and social inequality.
Earlier this year, the UN convened a conference in Geneva titled Beyond GDP, bringing together prominent economists to explore alternative ways of measuring economic success.
Among them were Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Indian economist Kaushik Basu and inequality expert Nora Lustig.
They are part of a UN task group working on a new set of indicators that would include environmental sustainability, equity and human wellbeing.
The group recently released a report warning that repeated global crises, including the 2008 financial crash and the Covid-19 pandemic, have exposed deep weaknesses in current economic models.
It said these shocks were intensified by climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, alongside technological disruption and rising inequality.
Basu said nations are trapped in competition over GDP rankings while ignoring citizens’ quality of life and long-term sustainability.
He warned that growth benefiting only a small elite fuels inequality and political division.
Lustig added that GDP was never designed to measure human progress but has become the dominant global benchmark.
She said economies can grow even while poverty, exclusion and human rights abuses persist.
The UN initiative comes amid wider concern that traditional economic models underestimate the financial risks of climate disasters and ecological collapse.
Researchers have warned that ignoring these impacts could destabilise the global economy.
Across academic and policy circles, new ideas are gaining attention, including wellbeing economics, post-growth models and calls for reduced consumption in wealthy countries.
Some economists argue that deeper structural change is needed to shift production toward socially beneficial sectors such as renewable energy, healthcare and public transport.
Advocates say the growing support for alternatives shows increasing recognition that economic systems must align with environmental limits.
Guterres said humanity’s future depends on building an economy that protects nature while improving people’s lives.
