The notion of green economies seems to have gained momentum in both developed and developing countries. For South Africa, the transition to a green economy presents a mix of challenges and opportunities. This stems from the fact that South Africa faces myriad socio-economic realities that force the country to maintain a generation of industries that contribute directly to the production of greenhouse gases in order to reduce unemployment, poverty and inequality. This paper provides an overview of South Africa’s attempts to migrate to a green economy. It specifically looks at the domestic and continental implications of South Africa’s reorientation of its economy towards a low-carbon growth path. While the country has managed to put together impressive policies meant to steer it onto a trajectory of low carbon economic growth, the realities facing South Africa point to an opposite direction.
This report evaluates the progress achieved in forest management by indigenous people and local communities, which was set as a key objective at the 1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It presents new findings and identifies what needs to done to protect global forest areas and ensure their contributions to social, environmental and economic development.
The paper argues that the amount of forests recognised as owned or controlled by indigenous peoples and local communities has increased globally from 10 per cent in 2002 to 15 per cent in 2012; in developing countries the increase has been from 21 to 31 per cent. It observes that the majority of governments continue to resist large-scale recognition of community land rights and many deny that indigenous peoples have any claim to their customary lands. Citing examples from Africa and Asia, the paper shows that no new areas of community rights have been recognised in the last several years.
Based on more than 40 interviews with energy sector CEOs and senior executives, as well as the 2012 Energy Sustainability Index, this 4th edition of the World Energy Trilemma report attempts to identify and describe what industry executives believe they need from policymakers. The report acknowledges that executives and policymakers urgently need to work together in order to achieve a transition to a sustainable energy system. Key to this report are the three dimensions of energy sustainability: energy security, social equity and environmental impact mitigation. These three core dimensions form a complex web of links between private and public actors, regulators, resources, economic and social forces, and environmental concerns that must be fully understood by all.
This report analyzes the experiences of countries that have undertaken reform of their fossil-fuel subsidies and establishes what lessons can be learned. It focuses in particular on France, Ghana and Senegal, as well as drawing from case studies of other countries and previous work that examines the reform of energy subsidies and price subsidies.
The study finds that, once in place, fossil-fuel subsidies are extremely difficult to remove. There is no single formula for success, and country circumstances and changing global conditions must be taken into account. However, strategies can be identified that contribute to successful reform and respond to individual country circumstances. This paper focuses on six important strategies that appear to improve the chances of lasting change:
The report shows evidence of the potential benefits of adopting sustainability as a business strategy. It also shows a dramatic shift in banks' awareness of these benefits. The report argues that banks can tap vast benefits by reassessing their business practices and engaging in sustainability-oriented risk management and product development. The report provides practical examples of 14 financial institutions in 12 countries that have taken concrete steps to integrate social and environmental sustainability into their policies, practices, products, and services.
Key findings from the report include:
This publication focuses on the review of policy and financing options to catalyse finance toward green, low-emission and climate-resilient development. It is part of a series of manuals, guidebooks and toolkits that draws upon the experience and information generated by the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) support for climate change adaptation and mitigation projects in some 140 countries over the past decade. In a flexible and non-prescriptive manner, the reports offer detailed step-by-step guidance for the identification of key stakeholders and establishment of participatory planning and coordination frameworks; generation of climate change profiles and vulnerability scenarios; identification and prioritisation of mitigation and adaptation options; assessment of financing requirements; and development of low emission climate-resilient roadmaps for project development, policy instruments and financial flows.
This summary was prepared by Eldis.
The greening of economic growth series ESCAP, its partners and Asia-Pacific countries have advocated "green growth" as a strategy to achieve sustainable development in the resource-constrained, high-poverty context of the Asian and the Pacific region. The conventional "grow now, clean up later" approaches to economic growth are increasingly placing the futures of regional economies and societies at risk. The forward-thinking policymaker is tasked to promote development based on eco-efficient economic growth and at the same time, record more inclusive gains in human welfare and socio-economic progress. In order to assist policymakers in responding to such challenges, ESCAP’s activity on green growth has been developed to focus on five paths: sustainable infrastructure development; investment in natural capital; green tax and budget reform; sustainable consumption and production; and the greening of business and markets. The ESCAP “Greening of economic growth” series provides policymakers with quick access to clear, easy-to-read guidance to specific "green growth" policy tools and actions.
This paper summarizes the additional uncertainty that is created by climate change, and reviews the tools that are available to project climate change (including downscaling techniques) and to assess and quantify the corresponding uncertainty.
Assuming that climate change and other deep uncertainties cannot be eliminated over the short term (and probably even over the longer term), it then summarizes existing decision-making methodologies that are able to deal with climate-related uncertainty, namely cost-benefit analysis under uncertainty, cost-benefit analysis with real options, robust decision making, and climate informed decision analysis. It also provides examples of applications of these methodologies, highlighting their pros and cons and their domain of applicability. The paper concludes that it is impossible to define the “best” solution or to prescribe any particular methodology in general.
Instead, a menu of methodologies is required, together with some indications on which strategies are most appropriate in which contexts.
This TEEB for Water and Wetlands report underlines the fundamental importance of wetlands in the water cycle and in addressing water objectives reflected in the Rio+20 agreement, the Millennium Development Goals and forthcoming post 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. The report presents insights on both critical water-related ecosystem services and also on the wider ecosystem services from wetlands, in order to encourage additional policy momentum, business commitment, and investment in the conservation, restoration, and wise use of wetlands.
TEEB Water and Wetlands aims to show how recognizing, demonstrating, and capturing the values of ecosystem services related to water and wetlands can lead to better informed, more efficient, and fairer decision making. Appreciating the values of wetlands to both society and the economy can help inform and facilitate political commitment to policy solutions.
This Policy Brief attempts to change the terms of the debate surrounding climate change policy. The authors argue that policymakers should do more to encourage innovation and investment in green research and development rather than focusing solely on the setting of a carbon price. Using a model developed by Aghion in a previous paper, they argue that a carbon price would have to be about 15 times higher in the first five years and 12 times higher in the next five years if innovation is not properly subsidized by governments. The authors also provide several policy recommendations for incentivising this type of green growth in the private sector.