Which one of the following statements best reflects the crux of the above passage?

Correct Option: (c) Maintaining high environmental standards is now a prerequisite for achieving a steady, sufficient and inclusive growth.

The passage argues that "green growth" involves a fundamental rethinking of development strategies. It emphasizes that in a resource-constrained world, resource-intensive and energy-intensive processes must make way for more efficient and frugal development models. This is necessary to avoid an economic dead-end or extreme societal inequalities where only an elite minority enjoys prosperity. Thus, environmental sustainability and maintaining high environmental standards are essential prerequisites for achieving steady, sufficient, and inclusive economic growth. Option (c) is the most accurate reflection of this crux. Option (a) is incorrect because it suggests environmental sustainability is harmful to GDP growth. Option (b) is incorrect because it argues poverty eradication requires environmental degradation. Option (d) is incorrect because it fatalistically accepts environmental degradation as inevitable, which contradicts the core concept of green growth.