Believe it or not, only a handful of people genuinely care about "GDP growth targets" and they have very little influence on environmental policy. The reason why politicians oppose sweeping regulation to stop climate change is because they'd lose their jobs if they intentionally caused gas prices to rise or cause a recession.
A large number of people with vast influence on all government policy care about the returns of their investments in existing incumbent industries, which in aggregate correlate very strongly with GDP growth, though.
I would rather live in a society with a higher GDP than less (all things considered) and so would most people (as evidenced by population shifts across the world). If the GDP does not grow to at least match the population changes, the society would be poorer and have worse outcomes overall.
Do you have any debt? Or use money? Or pay taxes?do you have a job? Did you know that oil consumption grows at the same rate as GDP? Do you save for retirement, or hold any investments? Do you have a bank account?
It's all directly connected to the economic system, which is driven by the goal of having steady and predictable rate of growth in GDP.
that is the foundation of the way economy works. It propagates down to interests and credits and investments and jobs.
Obviously IMO.