By presenting a selected number of successful national experiences from 2012, the progress report illustrates the different levels at which the International Labour Organization (ILO)'s Green Jobs Programme operates. The report also provides an update on the activities which will unfold in 2013 with the continued support of the Programme’s networks and partners.
This report includes case studies on Mexico, Kenya, Thailand, South Africa, the Dominican Republic, China, Turkey, Zambia and Indonesia.
The report provides recommendations to develop and implement policy reforms supporting market formation and fostering a favorable climate for investments in the sectors of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.
This wide-ranging regional assessment is based on case studies, expert workshops and senior policy maker seminars. It encourages policy makers to focus on: “quick wins” to demonstrate rapid results and increase political support through those measures that can be introduced in less than a year and are likely to produce significant impact at moderate costs; “essentials” as the backbone of a comprehensive energy efficiency and renewable energy policy, affecting the areas of greatest potential by raising standards and stimulating investments that are already financially viable; and “high cost, high return” measures that will remove fundamental barriers and will make more energy efficiency and renewable energy investments financially viable.
The report draws on presentations and discussions held during the LAC sessions of the International Conference "Water in the Green Economy in Practice: Towards Rio+20," held from 3-5 October 2011, in Zaragoza, Spain.
Launched during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20), this report is intended as a best practices guide. It contains four sections and two annexes. Section I discusses mainstreaming water into a green economy in agriculture, industry, cities and watersheds. Section II examines the challenges, approaches and lessons learned on water and green economy in LAC. Section III presents case studies from Barbados, Colombia, Ecuador and Guatemala. Section IV presents "the expert's perspective," answers to a series of questions put to three regional water experts.
Annex 1 offers "tools for changes," a brief review of economic incentives, green jobs, water cost recovery and financing, investments in the protection and improvement of biodiversity, promotion of water technologies. Annex 2 lists the issues presented for discussion at the Zaragoza Conference.
In a continent that is starved for energy and infrastructure, it is an enigma that India’s markets for energy efficiency have yet to take off. The authors of the report spent several months researching and debating this issue with stakeholders in India and around the world.
This white paper seeks to define the concept of a green economy within the economic, social, and environmental realities of the country. The paper's overall objective is to advance the state of knowledge in Canada on green economy concepts and practices, and to serve as a reference document for further engagement and dialogue.
More specifically, the paper addresses the following questions:
- How does a definition of the green economy in Canada balance the reality of continuing economic growth, particularly in the resource sector, with evidence of local and global environmental impacts and thresholds?
- Which indicators can provide information on Canada's progress at a macro-economic, sectoral, and firm level?
- What gaps exist in the knowledge and understanding of the green economy in Canada, particularly in terms of data and analysis?
- How can the Canadian economy become more innovative and competitive in the context of global resource scarcity, climate change, and emerging clean technologies?
This report is the results of joint research by a team from the World Bank and the Development Research Center of China’s State Council which was established to address the challenges and opportunities of urbanization in China and to help China forge a new model of urbanization. The report takes as its point of departure the conviction that China's urbanization can become more efficient, inclusive, and sustainable. However, it stresses that achieving this vision will require strong support from both government and the markets for policy reforms in a number of area.
This paper, Promoting Eco-Innovation: Challenges and potential solutions for private sector development, begins with an exploration, in Chapter 1, of how eco-innovation is addressed in the current international debate. This refers mainly to the climate change negotiations and the recent Rio+20 conference. Chapter 2 then provides a working definition of eco-innovation and examines how it fits with the requirements of private sector development. Chapter 3 contains an overview of the general conditions under which eco-innovations are generated in developing countries, including both the supply side and the demand side. Chapter 4 discusses possible approaches in the context of German development cooperation, and asks which instruments can be used to foster new innovations and encourage their rapid dissemination.
The report includes case studies on the African continent, Egypt, Ethiopia, Germany, and India.
The latest edition of this annual report outlines the latest developments, signs and signals in the financing of renewable power and fuels. Full of statistics, charts and narrative, it explores the issues affecting each type of investment, technology, and region. Overall the report underlines the increasingly positive role renewable energies are playing towards an increasingly low-carbon electricity and power supply.
The report includes case studies from China, India, and Brazil.
Green growth, or environmentally sustainable economic growth, is imperative in light of current environmental crises and resource depletion. Green indicators and statistics can measure environmentally sustainable development; they thus enable evaluating green growth and support its integration into policy. As such, this study uses an OECD framework to select a set of 12 indicators, designed for cross-country comparisons of green growth strategies. These indicators are assessed for 30 countries, including South Korea. Current data for each international indicator is compared to the 10th percentile of OECD countries and evaluated on a scale of 1-10. South Korea ranked 17th among the 30: its natural capital and quality of life indexes are relatively high, but its economic activity scores (production, consumption, and trade) are relatively low. These findings suggest that production and consumption processes must be made more environmentally and economically sustainable. Given that South Korea's green growth strategy currently emphasizes economic value, the country is moving in the right direction and our analysis projects that economic activity scores will rise in the future.