Reinvigorated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), a global discussion and national activities on green economy transitions have regained momentum since 2008. The increase in interest is, among other things, due to the growing understanding of the similarity and interlinkages between many of the recent financial, economic, environmental and social crises.
The 2008 global financial crisis focused attention not only on the financial losses, and implications for economies, jobs and housing, but also raised questions as to the fundamental imbalance in our economies. The choice of capital allocation - investment in property, fossil fuels and financial assets, rather than in measures to encourage resource efficiency - has created destructive imbalances. A further common element to all these crises is the focus of decision making on short time horizons and trust in what has often proven to be an incomplete evidence base including a lack of proper accounting, for example as regards the cost of climate change and biodiversity.
This brief publication was prepared as an input into the UN Conference on Sustainable Development 2012 by the Green Economy Coalition, a global network of organisations committed to accelerating the transition to a new green, inclusive economy. It sets out nine principles for a green, fair and inclusive economy that provides a better quality of life for all within the ecological limits of the planet. The principles are the result of five months of consultations with people and organisations around the world. The principles are: the Sustainable Principle; the Justice Principle; the Dignity Principle; the Healthy Planet Principle; the Inclusion Principle; the Good Governance and Accountability Principle; the Resilience Principle; the Efficiency and Sufficiency Principle; and the Generations Principle.
A key challenge for humanity over the coming decades will be to meet the energy, land, water and material needs of up to nine billion people, while keeping climate change, biodiversity loss and health threats within acceptable limits. The International Resource Panel (IRP) is examining ways of achieving decoupling of economic growth from resource use and environmental degradation by improving water productivity and measurement frameworks. This report covers the analytical methods and policy frameworks needed to ensure that water use can be properly quantified over its life cycle and integrated into decoupling measures within the green economy.
The paper examines methodologies for quantifying water use and environmental impacts, their underlying assumptions and the context in which they can be effectively used. The paper finds that:
•water registers provide a key to the fair distribution of access to water;
•accounting can provide governments with knowledge of how water is linked to the economy and human wellbeing;
•water footprint assessment can provide a tool for awareness raising to highlight water issues in production and consumption;
This annual report presents an optimistic view of the carbon market, which grew by 11 per cent in 2011. The report shows that despite the financial crisis and the related oversupply of carbon credits within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) as a result of economic downturn, plummeting carbon prices and uncertainty about the post 2020 framework, financially motivated transactions continued to grow within the carbon market. However, it underscores that prices fell during 2011. The report indicates that although China remained the largest source of contracted certified emissions reductions (CERs), African countries emerged stronger in 2011 and accounted for 21 per cent of post-2012 CERs contracted during the year. This summary was prepared by Eldis.
This book published by the World Bank suggests a multifaceted approach that addresses spatial development, energy-efficient industry, increased public transport, and sustainable waste management systems. By simultaneously acting on these issues, cities can begin to streamline climate change considerations into planning and investment decisions. The book also focuses on specific sectoral energy challenges, and provides recommendations to each sector. Furthermore, it lays out five key cross-cutting actions that form an overarching framework for low-carbon city development, namely to set appropriate indicators to encourage low-carbon growth; complement administrative measures with market-based approaches and tools; break links between land use, city financing and urban sprawl; encourage inter-sectoral and inter-jurisdictional cooperation; and balance climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. This summary was prepared by Eldis.
In 1992, governments gathered for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. The “Rio Declaration” laid out several principles of sustainable development, including the central role of policy instruments. This article takes stock of where we stand today in implementing sound and effective environmental policy instruments throughout the world, particularly in developing and transitional economies. It agures that, as our experience with market-based environmental policies has deepened over the past two decades, so has the ability to adapt instruments to complicated and heterogeneous contexts—but we are only just beginning, and the need to be further along is dire. One key factor may be that economists have not yet meaningfully accounted for the importance of political feasibility, which often hinges on risks to competitiveness and employment, or on the distribution of costs rather than on considerations of pure efficiency alone.