With a deal ratified from the recent Paris Climate Conference, attention now turns to the difficult task of actually achieving national emissions reduction targets. This will involve a delicate trade-off between different policies and investments, each with varying overall welfare benefits to society and financial returns to investors. In other words, with the same potential to reduce emissions, how to select between an intervention option that is costly, but generates a substantial number of jobs; and a second one that costs less, but does not contribute to employment creation?
As governments often prioritize the former (welfare benefits to society) while markets favor the later (cost minimizing interventions), climate change and green growth policies will continue to be a battleground of competing interests. New types of data and information will be required to bridge these gaps and illuminate common ground.
Are you a city-dweller, concerned about the challenges of urbanisation, resilience and inclusiveness?
Cities and urban areas represent unrivalled concentrations of people, economic growth, commercial networks, and innovation – and have the potential to make a significant contribution to the transition towards a low-carbon world. A starting point would be to explore multi-level governance solutions that allow cities to continue developing in a sustainable manner. But to get there, we must first understand the issues at the core of decision and policy-making between national and subnational levels of government. Tackling the underlying issues is essential to make green growth a reality for all cities, big and small.
For the second time, the International Training Centre of the International Labor Organization vibrated to the rhythm of the Academy on the Green Economy. This year, the Academy brought together some 150 participants from 35 countries, in Turin, Italy. A gathering of government policy makers, development practitioners, researchers, representatives of workers, employers and civil society organisations – it is a unique forum to learn and share knowledge about and experiences on the transition to inclusive green economies. The Academy is held every other year, under the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE), a joint programme of UN Environment, The International Labor Organization, the UN Industrial Development Organization, the UN Institute for Training and Research and the UN Development Programme.
Imagine you have an important decision to make. Do you carefully consider the long-term implications of each possible option or do you act impulsively? Would you approach the decision-making process differently if the consequences stretched out to 30 or even 50 years?
Urban, spatial and land use planning professionals repeatedly find themselves in this predicament. There are significant and long-lasting economic as well as environmental impacts of the decisions that are made with respect to transportation, energy, waste, water, buildings and infrastructure. Yet, many land-use interventions do not properly account for environmental consequences. The decisions made regarding where and when roads are built, and the density, type and location of buildings all have long-term impacts on air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity and water use. Even seemingly indirect or unrelated decisions on the taxation of property can have a significant impact on environmental outcomes. As a result, the innumerable decisions related to land use – both big and small – need to be made so that growth is green.
