This paper lays out how a ‘green economy’ must be designed to contribute to – rather than distract from – sustainable development. The authors define the equitable green economy as one that is ‘not a state but a process of transformation and a constant dynamic progression. The Green Economy does away with the systemic distortions and dis‐functionalities of the current mainstream economy and results in human well‐being and equitable access to opportunity for all people, while safeguarding environmental and economic integrity in order to remain within the planet’s finite carrying capacity. The economy cannot be Green without being Equitable.’
The paper proposes five key working principles that aim to help inform policy and market decisions in progressing the green economy and providing the link between an equitable green economy and sustainable development. The principles are that the Green Economy:
1. Links to policies specifying clear goals for key cross‐cutting pre‐requisites (enabling conditions) to address systemic distortions and dis‐functionalities in order to establish the foundation for equitable transformation and achieving sustainable development.
With new and emerging technologies, shifts in employment and changes in the workforce are occurring across the world. Employment shifts driven by economic transformation occur at three different levels: (i) across sectors (or industries); (ii) across enterprises within the same or similar sector (industry); and (iii) within enterprises. The speed and the amplitude of job creation and loss across these three levels determine the effects on the number of jobs as well as income.
One of the key challenges facing policymakers in transforming their economies is creating decent and meaningful employment. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), over 600 million new jobs would be needed in the next 10 years. This paper highlights employment opportunities and key challenges in a transition to a green economy and suggests what policy measures need to be put in place to ensure that newly created jobs can become decent jobs.
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.