Evidenze critiche sulla crescita verde: ottimismo internazionale, decoupling insufficiente e sfruttamento delle riserve idriche.

This thesis is the result of my three-year course in International Development and Cooperation Sciences. The methodology with which it was written can be found in the type of literary review dissertation. The paper is divided into three main chapters. The first one is aimed at giving an overview of the main theories (UNEP; OECD; World Bank) on the so-called ‘Green Growth’, and the main applications. In addition, the opening chapter analyses the European Union's New Green New Deal document, understanding and analyzing what the Union's objectives are regarding green growth and what policies the EU intends to adopt. The second chapter introduces the main criticism of the above-mentioned "Green Growth ". It will be analyzed the leading literature on the issue, such as the report called "Decoupling Debunked", which highlights the critical and unclear aspects of Green Growth. In addition, the paper aims to outline the numerous barriers to green economy, citing numerous articles, examples, and case studies. The second chapter introduces the concept of 'decoupling' and ‘delinking’, a fundamental aspect of environmental economics to approach the relationship between economic growth in the strict sense and environmental impact. Decoupling Debunked and numerous other researchers quoted in this work outline how 'decoupling' is not happening and raises questions for the future, with regard to the policies adopted by the main international organizations. The importance of water time has led this work to devote a separate, single chapter to the subject, the third. The issue of quantifying water in terms of environmental accounting plays a key role in the debate that has arisen on the subject. Therefore, the third chapter is dedicated to the concepts of virtual water and water footprint. The topic is then addressed by focusing to the relationships between virtual water and international trade. In this analysis, an attempt will be made to highlight the weight of international trade in the global water footprint and the intensive use of water reserves. Finally, considerations will be made on the dependency relationships between water importing and exporting countries.