The report, Towards the Circular Economy: Opportunities for the consumer goods sector, focuses on fast-moving consumer goods, which currently account for about 60 per cent of total consumer spending, 35 per cent of material inputs into the economy, and 75 per cent of municipal waste.
This report, City-Level Decoupling: Urban resource flows and the governance of infrastructure transitions applies the International Resource Panel report, Decoupling Resource Use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth to cities. The core argument of the Decoupling Report was that a transition to a green economy will depend on finding ways to sustain economic growth rates without escalating rates of resource use. To achieve this decoupling, appropriate sustainability-oriented innovation will need to be initiated, promoted and applied on a large scale. The report discusses some emerging trends within cities that demonstrate that it is possible to decouple urban development and rising rates of resource consumption, in other words, resource decoupling.
Risk — whether real or perceived — is the single most important factor preventing renewable energy projects from finding financial investors, or raising the returns that these investors demand. It is also one thing that policymakers can cause, control, alleviate, or help mitigate. In a series of three studies, titled Risk Gaps, CPI maps the availability of risk instruments against demand and analyzes several new, potential instruments designed to address the biggest gaps: first-loss protection instruments and policy risk insurance.
This guidance note provides a brief overview of issues related to gender equality, women’s empowerment and sustainable energy. Prepared specifically for the regional and country offices of UN Women and UNIDO, the note aims to provide guidance for UN programming and work with policy makers around sustainable energy that integrates the gender dimensions. The note can help strengthen collaboration with national and regional partners, as well as members of UN Country Teams, and promote South-South exchange of experiences in generating and supplying sustainable energy for all women and men, girls and boys.
The purpose of this paper is to assess evidence of ‘triple wins’ on the ground, and the feasibility of triple wins that do not generate negative impacts. It describes the theoretical linkages that exist between adaptation, mitigation and development, as well as the trade-offs and synergies that might exist between them. Using four developing country studies, this working paper makes a simple assessment of the extent of climate compatible development policy in practice through the lens of ‘no-regrets’, ‘low regrets’ and ‘with regrets’ decision making. The lack of evidence of either policy or practice of triple wins significantly limits the capacity of donors to identify, monitor or evaluate ‘triple wins at this point in time. It is recommended that a more strategic assessment of the distributional and financial implications of 'triple wins' policies.
The report was launched at the beginning of China’s Twelfth Five-year Period (2011-2015). After revising the measurement system of the Green Development Index 2010, the report measures the green development level of 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions as well as 34 large and medium-sized cities in China. The city-based measurement is first introduced into the report. Both the province and the city Green Development Index systems consist of three parts: i) the green degree of economic growth, ii) the carrying potential of natural resources and environment, and iii) the support degree of government policies. The three parts reflect the production and resource usage efficiency, the situation of environment and resources protection and pollutants emission, and government’s related investment and management respectively.
The report also summarizes the achievements in China’s green development during the Eleventh Five-year Period (2006-2010). The China Green Development Index Report 2011 provides a comprehensive evaluation of green economy developments in China and its importance to China’s switch in economic development model.