Our insistence on growth as a measure of success is in direct conflict with the urgent need to slow down and save the planet. Priorities must change

Consume less—particularly in the area of food and drink—will probably rank high on most people's lists of new year resolutions. "Produce less" is unlikely to feature at all on any directors' lists. But if we are serious about climate change, it should. Because, according to some experts, the only way to tackle the growing problem of global warming is to make, do and consume less stuff.

A report from the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) last November highlighted the threat of so-called "rebound effects" to the success of UK climate policy. An example of a rebound effect is a driver who replaces a gas-guzzling car with a fuel-efficient model, only to take advantage of the cheaper running costs by driving further and more often.

Such effects are not factored into policy targets, warns the UKERC. So people shouldn't be surprised by research due out in the spring from the New Economics Foundation (NEF), which will show that no combination of existing global growth and climate change scenarios will avert the "major irreversible climate change" predicted by Sir Nicholas Stern in his apocalyptic report into the human and economic cost of global warming.

NEF director of policy Andrew Simms says we need to reduce greenhouse gases by 12 to 13 per cent every year to avoid catastrophe, but even the US, which has most room for manoeuvre, has only achieved, at its best, a reduction of around 2.6 per cent. It is "probably impossible", says Simms, to achieve the required emissions reductions in a growing economy.

Switching to zero or negative growth flies in the face of received capitalist wisdom and practice, which holds that the more we make and the more we have, the more successful we are. But success can be measured on different scales. Research by London School of Economics professor Richard Layard, among others, highlights the inverse correlation between material wealth and happiness. The general public's satisfaction is marred by their constant efforts to keep up with the Joneses, while relentless pressure to deliver ever-higher quarterly results blights many a director's life.

The message hasn't filtered through into individual or corporate behaviour yet, and, as ever, ugly credit-card bills and lengthy queues at the refund counter will contribute to the new year hangover. Much of the overspending will have been on goods made in China. NEF research shows that over the past five years, spend on, and weight of imports from China to the UK have risen by over 125 per cent and 114 per cent respectively.
Given the west's growing dependence on China to make things cheaply, it seems a bit rich that we come over all holier-than-thou about China's status as the world's biggest polluter. Economies such as the UK and the US are essentially getting it to do their dirty work.

Taxing aviation fuel and inbound containers could make the cost of transporting goods over long distances prohibitive. But while this would spell a move to local sourcing and manufacturing, it would be a disaster for the population of China, up to 300 million of whom have been lifted out of poverty over the past 20 years as a result of the industrial revolution.

This is just one of the "green paradoxes" taxing the brains of governments and policy-makers around the world. Another is the credit crunch, which some believe will put a lid on production and consumption, and others believe will stifle much-needed investment in technological developments to combat climate change.

We eat too much and we waste too much. Obesity is rising to epidemic proportions, and the government-backed Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) revealed in November that around one-third of all food bought in the UK is thrown away untouched. No-one is busier "greening" their operations than the supermarkets, but if they were serious about climate change, wouldn't they replace those 'buy one get one free' offers with signs at the checkouts saying, "Please return half the contents of your trolley to the shelves"?

We need bold leadership, because ultimately, as Andrew Simms says, economics can't break the laws of physics. We can't have our planet and eat it.

Jane Simms is the former editor of Financial Director and Marketing Business.