This brief describes several ways that international cooperation can play a critical role in facilitating widespread innovation and implementation of new and appropriate green growth technologies. It outlines six existing institutional structures that have been invoked as possible examples for scaling up to foster green innovation more broadly and suggests several policy recommendations that are feasible in the near term.
This paper addresses the issues of urbanisation and green growth in Africa from the perspective of what it would take for African cities and countries to accommodate the upcoming urban explosion without the usual negative impact on the physical environment, and using it as an opportunity for innovative and green growth. The paper is organised in four parts. Part I reviews the performance of the African region, economic growth, urban expansion and the characteristics of the urbanisation process. Part II suggests a framework to discuss green growth at city level. It focuses on sectors normally under city responsibility (land, buildings, waste, urban transport) and reviews the use of public policies, including regulation, pricing, tax and investment criteria. Part III discusses combinations of policies for African cities at different stages of urbanisation and urban growth. Part IV summarises the key points for a forward-looking policy agenda. The reports draws on literature produced on Green Economy by UNEP, the World Bank, OECD, African Development Bank and provides relevant examples from Africa and cities in the world.
In the first post-transition decade after the fall of communism, Europe and Central Asia (ECA) moved its economy from plan to market. In the second decade, the 2000s, it moved from social division to inclusion. The region has an opportunity to use the third decade, the 2010s, to move from brown to green growth making production and consumption more sustainable, increasing quality of life, and reducing impacts on the climate. Lowering climate change risks in ECA will involve many different actions that fall broadly into three areas. Some, like energy efficiency improvements, are often economically beneficial regardless of climate concerns. Others, like creating a good business environment for green enterprises, are investments that create new growth opportunities. Finally, actions like expanding wind and solar energy will have net costs for some time but are essential to tackling climate change. A simple framework helps guide climate action. The priorities are to use energy more efficiently, use cleaner energy, and manage natural resources better.
China - and to some extent Brazil and India (BICs) - are staging a ”Great Convergence” in terms of industrial strength and incomes. This reverses the past two centuries of the Great Divergence, which has separated them from the West. In the process, the BICs are lifting millions of people out of poverty. But in the great transformation that lies ahead, there is a significant problem to contend with: the model of industrial capitalism that has served the West so well - and which has been held out as a model for the BICs as well - will not “scale” to lift vast new populations out of poverty. A new model of industrial capitalism has to be developed, and in some people’s eyes it is inconvenient that China is leading the way.
In 2005, the concept of green growth was introduced in the Asia-Pacific region as a strategy for sustainable growth in developing countries. This roadmap, produced by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), is intended for the use of member states to help policymakers find win-win strategies for promoting growth and reducing carbon emissions. Drawing upon innovative approaches, particularly from the Republic of Korea, this manual lays out the challenges, strategies and policy options of green growth in several critical sectors.
The document is divided into two parts, with additional case studies and fact sheets available via CD-ROM. Part one presents an overview of the opportunities and challenges the region faces regarding low carbon green growth. It also discusses the system change required to shift focus to this new development path. Part two of the roadmap shows how to start the process of pursuing green growth through five different tracks, outlined below, which are seen as core elements of necessary systemic change: