Are UN Targets Possible without Degrowth?

Explanations for the inability of nations to reach their UN-negotiated targets, such as those related to greenhouse gas emissions reductions and halting biodiversity loss, often point to a "lack of political will". This paper argues that this is not only vague but also, more importantly, misrepresents the fundamental commitment that nation states have to perpetual economic growth. The paper brings 25 years of ethnographic data gathered in the context of UN environmental negotiations (such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity) together with degrowth scholarship to argue that the meeting targets is only possible through modification of socio-economic systems of capital accumulation, and that missing targets is the inevitable result of the inability for nation states to interrogate hegemonic economic imperatives.