This report comprises a series of three perspectives of the ‘Green Economy’ from leading experts Jose Antonio Ocampo, Aaron Cosbey and Martin Khor and an overarching summary by Jose Antonio Ocampo. The core elements of the paper are:
The Netherlands National Committee IHP-HWRP, together with the Netherlands National Commission for UNESCO, has published a new (fourth) publication in their series of water-related UNESCO publications: «Green growth and water allocation». Edited by Sophie Primot, Michael van der Valk and Penelope Keenan, the publication contains contributions from many of the speakers of a 2-day workshop held in November 2012 in Wageningen, the Netherlands.
This publication summarises the proceedings of a conference organised during April 2012 in Lisbon by the think tank Platform for Sustainable Growth (Plataforma para o Crescimento Sustentável) on the topic “How can we foster green growth?” Speakers included António Costa e Silva (CEO of Partex), Joy Kim (Advisor at United Nations Environmental Programme), Peter Vis (Chief of Cabinet of the EU Commissioner on Climate Action) and Carlos Pimenta (Coordinator of Sustainability at PCS). The aim of the event and the follow-up publication was to identify the role green economy can play to achieve sustainable growth in Europe in general and Portugal in particular.
This paper explores the high dependency of a number of countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on mineral resources, and the relative lack of expected social benefits from the extractive industries sector in these countries. The brief finds opportunities for greener and inclusive growth by linking extractive industries to other development goals beyond economic returns, as well as by integrating environmental concerns more broadly into economic development plans.
“Green growth” is an attractive slogan with a variety of possible meanings. This essay critically examines several potential meanings of this slogan and provides a brief overview of some of the main implications of the other papers in this special issue. Taken together, these papers argue for the importance of careful analysis of energy/environmental policies, particularly ambitious ones claiming to offer huge benefits with little or no cost.
This article appeared in the Energy Economics Supplemental Issue: Green Perspectives.