Policies must balance forest conservation’s local costs with its benefits—local to global—in terms of biodiversity, the mitigation of climate change, and other eco-services such as water quality. The trade-offs with development vary across forest locations. This article argues that considering location in three ways helps to predict policy impact and improve policy choice: (i) policy impacts vary by location because baseline deforestation varies with characteristics (market distances, slopes, soils, etc.) of locations in a landscape; (ii) different mixes of political-economic pressures drive the location of different policies; and (iii) policies can trigger ‘second-order’ or ‘spillover’ effects likely to differ by location. This article provides empirical evidence that suggests the importance of all three considerations, by reviewing high-quality evaluations of the impact of conservation and development on forest. Impacts of well-enforced conservation rise with private clearing pressure, supporting (i). Protection types (e.g. federal/state) differ in locations and thus in impacts, supporting (ii).
The concept of payments for ecosystem services (PES) has recently emerged as a promising tool for enhancing or safeguarding the provision of ecosystem services (ES). Although the concept has been extensively scrutinized in terms of its potential positive and negative impacts on the poor in developing countries, less attention has been paid to examining the role of PES in the context of adaptation to climate change. PES has some potential to contribute to adaptation to climate change, but there are also risks that it could undermine adaptation efforts. In order to maximize synergies and minimize trade-offs between PES and adaptation, it is important that the conceptual links between both are made explicit. The present article presents the main conceptual links between PES and adaptation to climate change and suggests ways of making PES pro-poor and pro-adaptation.
The Green Economy Report is compiled by UNEP’s Green Economy Initiative in collaboration with economists and experts worldwide. It demonstrates that the greening of economies is not generally a drag on growth but rather a new engine of growth; that it is a net generator of decent jobs, and that it is also a vital strategy for the elimination of persistent poverty. The report also seeks to motivate policy makers to create the enabling conditions for increased investments in a transition to a green economy.
The report includes chapters on the following areas:
- Agriculture
- Fisheries
- Water
- Forests
- Renewable Energy
- Manufacturing
- Waste
- Buildings
- Transport
- Tourism
- Cities
- Modelling
- Finance
A fundamental transformation is required in the way we produce, deliver and consume energy. The current energy system is highly dependent on fossil fuels, whose combustion accounted for 84 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2009. Global demand for energy is rapidly increasing, because of population and economic growth, especially in large emerging market economies, which will account for 90 per cent of energy demand growth to 2035. At the same time, 1.3 billion people worldwide still lack access to electricity.
The OECD and IEA have released the joint report Green Growth Studies: Energy, which highlights the challenges facing energy producers and users, and how they can be addressed using green growth policies.
This report was prepared by the UN EMG's Issue Management Group on Green Economy to assess how the United Nations system could coherently support countries in transitioning to a green economy. The report aimes to facilitate a common understanding of the green economy approach and the measures required for the transition. This report was written in the run-up to the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), where one of the themes was "green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication".
This report examines the economic and environmental benefits of transitioning to a green economy compared with a business-as-usual (BAU) development path.