In recent years, a plurality of different governance initiatives has emerged that are designed to expand the disclosure of environmental risk within financial markets. The emergence of these initiatives represents an important policy development, and it has the potential to reduce environmental risk within the financial sector by incentivizing investments in sustainable economic activity capable of long-term value creation. Unfortunately, environmental risk disclosure has yet to be assessed as a field of governance activity in addition to its potential effectiveness in improving disclosure within financial markets.
For more than a century and a half, the world’s economies, industries, and even financial sectors have developed around relatively cheap, readily available fossil fuels and abundant land. Governments and corporations have invested trillions of dollars in fossil fuel and land development, and nearly every economic sector in every country is affected by the cost, reliability, and availability of energy derived from fossil fuel. This study focuses on the four fossil fuel industries - oil, coal, natural gas, and fossil fuel electricity generation - evaluating the potential impact that a transition to a low-carbon economy might have on investors, consumers, producers, and governments and, crucially, how policy can shape that impact. Through a series of modeling exercises that detail potential transition mechanisms, it shows that policy is the main determinant of winners and losers. Based on this concept, this paper summarizes the main findings from this analysis, drawing the main lessons from each of the four separate analyses of global and national oil, coal, gas, and fossil fueled power industries.
The benefits of hydropower as a source of clean energy with low greenhouse gas emissions are in stark contrast with its negative local social and environmental impacts. This briefing paper discusses this contradiction and the rising importance of affordable clean energy from hydropower in emerging and developing economies. Since hydropower is back on the development agenda this momentum should be used to invest in more environmental and social friendly schemes.
The World Survey on the Role of Women in Development is a UN Secretary-General report mandated by the Second Committee of the General Assembly and comes out every five years. The 2014 report focuses on gender equality and sustainable development, with chapters on the green economy and care work, food security, population dynamics, and investments for gender-responsive sustainable development. The report comes at a crucial moment, as the global community grapples with the definition of the Sustainable Development Goals and the emergence of the post-2015 framework. This report also offers a comprehensive set of recommendations for gender-responsive policy actions and investments towards sustainable development overall, as well as for the selected areas which the World Survey emphasizes.
This policy brief draws the attention of policy-makers and social partners in least developed countries to the role of skills development in facilitating the building of greener economies, as a way to achieve sustainable development and poverty eradication. It has been written at the request of ILO constituents from LDCs, where environmental deterioration and the consequences of climate change are among the major challenges of the twenty-first century. While change is a challenge, it also offers economic and employment opportunities. The brief arises out of the Green Jobs Initiative, a partnership between the ILO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the International Organization of Employers (IOE). It draws on research applied in policy design and numerous case studies of country experiences and good practices.
Committee on Environmental Policy (CEP) invited the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) and UNEP secretariats, in close consultation with relevant stakeholders, including ministries, business and civil society, to prepare an updated report on progress and future prospects in greening the economy in the pan-European region and to include in the report additional chapters on the identification of priorities for greening the economy in the region and possible modalities and options to achieve that (ECE/CEP/2013/2, para. 116 (g) (iii)). The present report attempts to respond to the CEP request and aims at facilitating discussion by CEP. CEP will be invited to consider the issue of greening the economy in the region, including further steps and actions necessary to advance it.