Date Time Idea of ‘green growth’ is flawed As countries explore ways of decarbonising their economies, the mantra of “green growth” risks trapping us in a spiral of failures. Green growth is an oxymoron. Author Senior Researcher; Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Growth requires more material extraction, which in turn requires more energy. The fundamental problem we face in trying to replace fossil energy with renewable energy is that all our renewable technologies are significantly less energy dense than fossil fuels. This means much larger areas are required to produce the same amount of energy.