This report comprises a series of three perspectives of the ‘Green Economy’ from leading experts Jose Antonio Ocampo, Aaron Cosbey and Martin Khor and an overarching summary by Jose Antonio Ocampo. The core elements of the paper are:
The principles of sustainable development play an integral role in making development assistance work at the level of policies, plans and programmes. In response to the Paris Declaration call to "… develop and apply common approaches for ‘Strategic Environmental Assessment’ at sector and national levels" among donors and partners, the Guidance on Applying Strategic Environmental Assessment was endorsed in 2006 by members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, representatives of developing countries receiving aid, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Bank and many other agencies. Since then, a growing number of countries at all levels of development have legislation or regulations prescribing the application of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and many more are introducing it as part of their policy tools. This is creating unique opportunities for better policy making and planning by incorporating environmental considerations into high-level decision-making and opening new mechanisms to build consensus on development priorities within governments themselves and between governments and societies.
The book presents a major meta-analysis of 'value of a statistical life' (VSL) estimates derived from surveys where people around the world have been asked about their willingness to pay for small reduction in mortality risks. The analysis seeks to explain the differences in the estimates, for example across countries. Differences in incomes and the magintude of the risk reduction people have been asked to value were found to be the factors having the strongest impact on VSL, but a number of other policy-relevant factors are also important. Based on the meta-analysis, and a broad review of the literature, the book also presents clear advice on how VSL values best can be used in assessments of environmental, health and transport policies, such as in cost-benefit analyses. Using explicit VSL estimates to quantify the benefits to society of fatality risk reductions can play an important role in the development of more cost-effective public policies.
The Second Environmental Performance Review of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia takes stock of the progress made by the country in the management of its environment since the country was first reviewed in 2003.
Greening Development: Enhancing Capacity for Environmental Management and Governance outlines a number of steps to be considered when building capacity for greening national development planning, national budgetary processes and key economic sector strategies. It identifies the key actors to be engaged in the decision making processes, outlines possible capacity needs and suggests how these can be addressed. The cyclical approach being advocated in the report reflects a shift from the traditional view of capacity development as a purely technical process to one that recognises the importance of country ownership at different levels in governments and society
Improving energy-efficiency is essential to any strategy to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). New generations of household appliances are becoming ever more energy-efficient due to continuing technological advances, often spurred by government policies. These products are manufactured, sold and used on a global scale not imagined a decade ago. Yet achieving the full market potential of these best-available technologies has proven elusive, due to a variety of factors, some of which are trade-related. This paper considers these factors and looks at ways of addressing them. It examines four products in the residential sector that have considerable potential for significantly reducing GHG emissions: refrigerators, televisions, lighting, and air conditioners. These technologies are also widely traded globally. To develop a better understanding of how improvements in energy efficiency could affect CO2 emission reductions, the paper draws on work undertaken by Japan’s Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE), using their DNE21+ model.