The importance of cities in climate policy stems from the simple reality that they house the majority of the world's population, two-thirds of world energy use and over 70% of global energy use emissions. At the international level, global carbon markets have become an important new source of financing for mitigation projects and programmes. Yet to date, the participation of urban authorities and of urban mitigation projects in the global carbon market remains extremely limited. The under-representation of urban carbon projects can be linked both to the difficulties to implement urban mitigation projects and to the difficulties for cities to access the carbon market.
UNEP, in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), organized a Technical Workshop on Fiscal Policies Towards and Inclusive Green Economy in October 2012 in Geneva. The workshop brought together representatives from both finance and environment ministries to share and discuss their experiences and good practices for driving a green economy through fiscal policy reforms. This paper is one of the follow-ups of this joint endeavour.
- The role of environmental taxes in a green economy transition
- Reforming energy subsidies
- Implications of fiscal reforms and lessons learned
This report examines the current state of knowledge about green growth in cities and outlines the key research questions and protocols that will guide the OECD Green Cities programme. It builds the case for an urban green growth agenda by examining the economic and environmental conditions that have pushed the green growth agenda to the forefront of policy debate and assessing the critical role of cities in advancing green growth.
By identifying successful experiences of social dialogue on environmental policy, the report at hand presents practices, challenges and opportunities in developing and strengthening an efficient social dialogue on environmental issues at national, supranational, subnational and sectoral level. The report, produced with the support of Sustainlabour, intends to promote a stronger interaction among governments, workers’ and employers’ organizations in an increasingly challenging area for the world of work: environment, green economy and sustainable development.
The Development Co-operation Report is the key annual reference document for statistics and analysis on trends in international aid. This year, the Development Co-operation Report 2012 seeks to provide insights into how to address today’s sustainable development challenges, with a focus on inclusiveness and good governance to ensure that our finite resources are equitably distributed, now and in the future. Sharing finite resources among a growing number people – and consumers – is a critical challenge.
In the light of the strong policy commitments at European level to the development of a sustainable and resource-efficient economy, in recent years Cedefop has been focusing on ‘green’ growth and its implications for skills and vocational education and training policies.
This report examines trends in employment, skill needs and training provision for a selected group of occupations likely to be affected by the development of a low-carbon and resource-efficient economy and makes policy recommendations that seek to ensure that businesses can take advantage of the opportunities presented by this transition and that the skill needs it generates are met.
Nine occupations were selected to provide a balanced mix of sectors and skill levels in the labour market:
(a) nanotechnologist, engineering technologist and environmental engineer as examples of high-skilled occupations;
(b) energy auditor, transport vehicle emissions inspector, insulation worker, electrician, solar photovoltaic installer and sheet-metal worker as examples of medium-skilled occupations;
(c) refuse/recycling collector as an example of a low-skilled occupation.
The magnitude of climate change and of the ensuing changes in production systems requires us to seek solutions to meet these challenges and to guide us in making the necessary production transitions, while simultaneously guaranteeing social cohesion, participation in decision-making and best use of potential benefits in terms of job creation. In this sense, the Green Jobs Programme of the ILO, in collaboration with the Sustain Labour Foundation, the International Foundation for Sustainable Development, has conducted this case study on the Social Dialogue Tables Initiative conducted in Spain as a mechanism for trade unions and employers' organizations, together with industry, environment and labour institutions to assess the effects on the competitiveness, employment and social cohesion of the Kyoto Protocol in Spain. This is a draft report. The final report will be ready in the coming months.
With the sun gradually setting on the Kyoto Protocol (Phase One), it has become quite apparent that the global response to resource scarcity and climate change is going to be variable and disaggregated.
Increasingly, countries and businesses across the globe are adopting various financial mechanisms and policies in order to manage such challenges. However, many such responses are restricted to advanced, developed countries, whereas the effects of climate change and the increasing cost of resources such as fossil fuels are likely to be more severe for developing countries. This dichotomy in response measures needs to be urgently addressed, and this report is an attempt to highlight the benefits of an inclusive growth oriented financial response mechanism with particular focus on India.
The technical brief highlights the close inter-linkages between climate change and the world of work and discusses entry points for promoting policy coherence between climate and social and labour policies.
This discussion paper was prepared under the auspices of the United Nations Task Team on Social Dimensions of Climate Change, which is currently composed of 20 Agencies, including the International Labour Organization. The paper addresses the social dimensions of climate change from a sustainable, equitable development perspective. It aims to broaden and deepen policy-makers’ understanding of the benefits of addressing and incorporating the social dimensions of climate change into climate policies. In doing so, the paper identifies a number of knowledge gaps within the social, human and natural sciences that need to be filled in order to further strengthen policy responses.