- The relevance and effectiveness of green growth initiatives in South Asia;
- The current status of regional and national green growth strategies;
- Compatibility with traditional and emerging country growth models;
- Evidence on what works and what does not, and the knowledge gap;
- The challenges and opportunities that green growth poses for poverty reduction in the region; and
- The key institutions carrying out research on green growth in the region.
In this publication, CDKN and Climate Strategies present nine papers from leading climate change academics, policy-advisors and subject matter experts on some of the critical deadlocks hampering climate negotiations, and new economic, social and political ideas to move the debate forward. A number of papers within the publication touch on green growth, including the potential for green growth as a new narrative for climate action, experimental institutional restructuring to better realize “climate compatible development” and the implementation of green bonds to mobilize financial resources from the private sector.
Mountain socio-ecological systems produce valuable but complex ecosystem services resulting from biomes stratified by altitude and gravity. These systems are often managed and shaped by smallholders whose marginalization is exacerbated by uncertainties and a lack of policy attention. Human–environment interfaces in mountains hence require holistic policies. The authors analyse the potential of the Global Mountain Green Economy Agenda (GMGEA) in building awareness and thus prompting cross-sectoral policy strategies for sustainable mountain development. Considering the critique of the green economy presented at the Rio + 20 conference, the authors argue that the GMGEA can nevertheless structure knowledge and inform regional institutions about the complexity of mountain socio-ecological systems, a necessary pre-condition to prompt inter-agency collaboration and cross-sectoral policy formulation. The paper draws on two empirical cases in the Pakistani and Nepali Himalayas. In each case, it first shows that lack of awareness has led to a sequence of fragmented interventions with unanticipated, and unwanted, consequences for communities.
REDD is one of the latest additions to a series of incentive-based mechanisms for reducing carbon emissions. Many developing and emerging countries have started engaging in REDD. Peru, the country with the world’s fourth largest area of tropical forest, is no exception here – with an obvious motivation: about half of Peru’s annual greenhouse gas emissions are currently caused by deforestation.
Over the last years, public and private initiatives have led to a complex multi-level REDD governance architecture in Peru. This architecture faces challenges in terms of social inclusion and coordination. This study identifies and analyses key issues, some of which are merely teething problems, while others are deeply rooted in socio-economic imbalances and political culture, such as insufficient financial, technical and human capacities of ministries and regional governments; legitimacy gaps; and information and participation asymmetries across public actors, NGOs, companies and forest users.