This paper aims to present a snapshot of some of the best practices in the promotion and use of renewable energy and provide practical examples of the development of renewable energy markets that countries in Latin America and the Caribbean can replicate. It examines current and potential renewable energy markets in Latin America and the Caribbean, economic development benefits of expanding renewable energy markets, policy tools and mechanisms that have been used to build and promote renewable energy in the United States, as well as the role of governments and the private sector.
This summary was prepared by Eldis.
The value of nature is increasingly visible as business demand for natural capital grows. This demand can cause environmental events and phenomena such as water scarcity, directly linked to lower profitability. Indirect effects can include social pressure that prompts changes in demand and regulation, with little or no warning. This study builds on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Business and Enterprise and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s Guide to Corporate Ecosystem Valuation by estimating in monetary terms the financial risk from natural capital that is currently unpriced, across specific business sectors at a regional level, and through supply chains. It demonstrates that opportunities from sustainable business practices can be private as well as collective, and therefore how, by taking pre-emptive action, businesses may gain a competitive advantage while meeting corporate sustainability goals.
This report describes an evolving policy landscape in Asia and the Pacific characterised by a changing economic reality, rising demand for resources, increasingly apparent impacts of climate change and increased risk and uncertainty. It provides insights into Asian and Pacific resource use trends and outlines key actions that governments can pursue to help bring economic growth strategies in closer alignment with the objective of sustainable development. It also provides examples of strategies for improving resilience to help deal with the increasing levels of risk faced by societies and economies. The report is the product of a combined effort by three institutions: the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
This summary was prepared by Eldis.
This Working Paper analyses opportunities and threats for low-income countries, and the business case for low carbon investment. The study sets out to answer the following questions:
i) How will climate change, international mitigation, and scarcity of natural resources affect trade opportunities and the competitiveness of the most important economic sectors in low-income countries?
ii) How can policymakers and businesses in those countries best respond to the opportunities and threats identified?
iii) When do these three competitiveness-related drivers create a business case for low carbon investment, and when do they create a trade-off? What are the implications for policy?
Over 20% of the global population – 1.4 billion people – lack access to electricity. Some 40% of the global population – 2.7 billion people – rely today on the traditional use of biomass for cooking. In this report, the IEA estimates that an investment of $36 billion per year is needed to ensure that every person in the world benefits from access to electricity and clean cooking facilities by 2030.
This report was originally presented on 21 September 2010 on the sidelines of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Summit in New York at a dinner hosted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
This paper argues that least developed countries (LDCs) are greatly threatened by human induced climate change, because their dependence on rain-fed agriculture and forestry as sources of employment and income make them vulnerable to climatic changes and variability. Many LDCs are already subject to climatic stress due to their location in the tropics and other areas subject to a high incidence of weather-related shocks. The paper notes that the most important source of greenhouse gas emissions in LDCs is land use change, in particular deforestation. Halting deforestation is, thus, a key priority for low carbon development.
The world faces old and new security challenges that are more complex than our multilateral and national institutions are currently capable of managing. Publics around the world remain focused on material standards of living; leaders are reluctant to expend political capital on long-term, global risk issues; multilateral ‘bandwidth’ remains low; in many cases it is unclear what solutions would look like. This paper argues for the need to place unsustainability squarely at the center of larger debates about globalisation and the global economy – in particular by focusing on three key areas:
1. Greening growth;
2. Equity in a world of limits; and
3. Building resilience to shocks and stresses.
Green growth is an environmental policy strategy that aims at an absolute decoupling between economic growth and resource consumption. As far as the applied policy measures focus on direct enhancements of economy-wide resource efficiency levels, their overall achievements might however be weakened by their induced rebound effects. This paper seeks to investigate the nature and significance of such trade-off interrelationships with regards to material efficiency improvements within the German economy. To this, we present the outcomes of individual policy simulations by means of the PANTA RHEI model. Taxes, information, and regulation activities are considered as policy instruments. Our overall empirical findings cannot falsify the green growth paradigm as the observed magnitude of economy-wide rebound effects appears unable to inhibit future absolute decoupling trends.
Green growth strategies play vital roles in unlocking synergies between economic growth, environmental protection, and poverty reduction and enabling a transition to an inclusive green economy. By analyzing around 60 specific government programs from around the world, the GGBP demonstrates that green growth is actively practiced around the world as a dynamic pathway to achieve a green economy and sustainable development. The recommendations for effective green growth approaches, based on the experience of early movers, provides practical guidance for national and sub-national policy planning towards the sustainable development goals in the post-2015 development agenda.
This Synthesis of Key Findings elaborates on nine key actions that enable effective green growth policy:
Sustainable Energy is the sixth in the series of annual reports produced by the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED) on the state of Arab environment. The report highlights the need for more efficient management of the energy sector, in view of enhancing its contribution to sustainable development in the Arab region.