Global economy must move past GDP to avoid planetary disaster, warns UN chief

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/09/global-economy-transformed-humanity-future-un-chief-antonio-guterres

14 Comments

  1. But the line has to go up. There is nothing more important. The numbers must rise or the whole system will collapse. /s

  2. Some economist said something along the lines of “if you look at the wrong metrics you will get the wrong results”

    Can’t help but remember that any human benefits of our economic structure are secondary. The only point is to make money then hope people get enough crumbs they can lick off the floor.

  3. Capitalism was a nice way to maximize human innovation for some time and we probably wouldn’t be even close to where we are from a technological & quality-of-life standpoint without it, but we are bound by a finite system of which pure capitalism does not pay full respect to. There will be a point where our very survival depends on creation of a new system, if that point is not here already. We must do work on accountability and better tie means of production and leisure consumption to their long-term environmental impacts

  4. Different-Horror-581 on

    The interest rate on American has become to high. We will have limited options moving forward on how to do business.

  5. We’ve already moved past GDP. We’re doing GBP now. Gross Billionaire’s Profit.  Everything 99.9% of people work for will quickly go into a few billionaire pockets, and then…well, that’s it.

  6. They want us to believe turning the on printers is what must be done . Brrr = devaluation of usd . Impacts are ; every year if you get a raise , it’s not a raise till it is measure against true inflation of the dollar . Which means in analogy , the frog in warm water slowly going to the state of boiling .

  7. CackleberryOmelettes on

    Goodhart’s Law. When a measure becomes a target. And we shaped the entire global financial system around it. Now it’s suffering the decay of late stage capitalism.

    Honestly, it’s a recipe for disaster in the medium-long term.

  8. ragnaroksunset on

    As the guy who “invented” it noted, it’s not really a good metric for broad, long-run use.

    But it has the beautiful property of being driven primarily by how well a few rich people do while making it sound like everyone is doing well.

    So, it’s not going anywhere any time soon.

  9. I think China has the biggest GDP growth for the past 25 years and we can’t criticize China here bc it’s a based communism.

  10. UnifiedQuantumField on

    >Global economy must move past…

    Compulsive focus on growth/profits because of rich people’s obsession with greater and greater wealth.

  11. It’s not just “line goes up”. Capitalism isn’t just about economics. It’s a whole social system of class dominance what relies on exploitation of workers and ownership of factories and machines what make critical stuff. Make exploitation illegal and prices skyrocket. Seize the means of production and wages will crater. GDP is a metric by economists, for economists. Capital focuses on profits and market share. To kick Capital outta the club entirely we can nationalize businesses, or outlaw conglomerates, or lawmakers can set high federal wages and nationalize healthcare, or do all of the above