The Governments of Indonesia and Central Kalimantan have ambitious targets to both grow the palm oil sector and improve environmental quality by reducing deforestation, and smallholder farmers are an important part of the picture. We find that, as the plantation area managed by smallholder farmers grows, there are opportunities to improve productivity and farmer benefits within all models of smallholder organization that we examined, particularly for individual partnership and independent farmers.
Placing Indonesia’s economy onto a green and sustainable development pathway, as envisaged in the National Long Term Development Plan, will require a large mobilization of investment. Estimates of the annual investment needed are in the order of US$300‐530 billion, with a large portion of this investment needed in critical infrastructure, as well as environmentally sensitive areas such as agriculture, forestry, energy, mining and waste. In addition, financing for SMEs and industry is critical for creating jobs and boosting productivity.
To date, there is still limited understanding of the broad landscape of private green finance in Indonesia. While some research has been conducted on sustainable financing in the banking sector, there has been relatively little systematic research into the specific features and flows of green finance from private capital markets, even though Indonesia has reasonably sophisticated financial institutions and markets. This study is therefore intended to contribute to the exploration of the state of green investment in Indonesia within the wider economic and financial sector context.
Adequate, appropriate finance is crucial for sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific UN (ESCAP) estimates that the region needs to invest around US$2.5 trillion a year between 2013 and 2030 to achieve key sustainable development goals:
- US$500-800 billion to close gaps in education, health, employment, social protection and basic access to energy services.
- US$800-$900 billion for developing infrastructure for energy, transport, telecommunications and water and sanitation.
- US$500-800 billion for climate change mitigation and renewable energy.
This briefing has been produced by the UNEP Inquiry as a contribution to discussions at the Regional Consultation on Financing for Development in Asia and the Pacific which took place in Jakarta, Indonesia in April 2015. It draws on the Inquiry’s ongoing research, and country engagement in particularly focusing on the sustainable development, financial systems and actions to be conducted for the Asia and the Pacific region.
For the International Labour Organization (ILO), gender equality has been the core value of its work since its founding in 1919. The pursuit for gender equality is grounded on its recognition that equality is not just an intrinsic value and a right in itself, but also instrumental in achieving economic growth and poverty reduction. This policy brief aims to contribute to the discussion on how gender equality can become an integral part of green economy strategies and how equal access for women and men to green jobs which are decent can be enhanced. The policy brief is targeted at policy makers, social partners and experts in the field working on green jobs/green economy issues.
This handbook aims to foster a better understanding of the interlinkages between international trade, the environment and the green economy. It therefore focuses on national and international trade policy and rules, on environmental governance and principles, and the relationship between both. This third edition of Environment and Trade: A Handbook covers a wealth of new information, including the emergence of the green economy concept, the latest WTO jurisprudence, and increasingly important legal and policy linkages between trade and green economy policies and practices in the changing dynamics of international trade with the emergence of the BRIC economies and the exponential rise in preferential trade agreements. The handbook has been renamed Trade and Green Economy: A Handbook to reflect the green economy as an important tool for achieving sustainable development and poverty eradication, and to illustrate the holistic approach that is required when addressing issues at the nexus of trade, environment and sustainable development.
The Government of India has ambitious renewable energy targets, but limited financial resources to meet those targets. CPI examines how much it would cost the government to reach its renewable energy targets, by comparing the levelized cost of electricity from renewable energy to a baseline fossil fuel in absence of any subsidies – whether explicit or implicit; estimating the total cost of support for renewable energy under accelerated depreciation to determine which is the most cost-effective of existing policies; and investigating federal policy options to make this support even more cost-effective. The paper is organized in five sections. After the first section of introduction, section 2 discusses the selection of imported coal as the baseline cost of electricity for comparison with renewable energy. Section 3 forecasts and compares the levelized cost of electricity from renewable energy and the baseline of imported coal. Section 4 examines the cost of government support for renewable energy under different policy pathways. Section 5 presents policy implications.