Growth is the G20′s “highest priority”

Browsing the final communique from this week’s G20 summit, it’s hard to miss the emphasis on growth. The 20 most powerful countries have committed to ” a full return to growth” within two sentences of the 27 page document, and the phrase will crop up a further 66 times before the end.

In fact, growth is the first thing on the agenda: “the G-20’s highest priority is to safeguard and strengthen the recovery and lay the foundation for strong, sustainable and balanced growth”

In a world that faces climate change, extreme inequality, massive biodiversity loss, inevitable resource depletion and crushing poverty, what does it say about us that our first priority is economic growth?