The book includes case studies from Hannover (Germany), Auckland (New Zealand), Flanders (Belgium), Western Canada, City of Raleigh (United States), and Kyoto (Japan).
Bringing together 35 contributions from over 60 experts from research, the private sector, international organisations and local governments worldwide, ICLEI’s compendium bridges the gap between the global promotion of the concept and its actual realisation on the ground by illustrating the advantages of the Green Urban Economy approach with concrete and practical examples.
By embedding both economic and environmental concerns in policymaking, the compendium calls for smarter approaches and innovation in applying existing tools and new methods towards achieving sustainable urban development. Covering issues such as governance, economics, new business models, green jobs, technology, infrastructure, urban poverty, it is also an acknowledgement of and call for more locally responsive actions, new thinking and research.
The book includes case studies from Hannover (Germany), Auckland (New Zealand), Flanders (Belgium), Western Canada, City of Raleigh (United States), and Kyoto (Japan).
Developing countries have collectively displayed relatively high growth rates in the last decade. Although large disparities still persist in standards of living, low and middle income countries averaged economic growth of 6.2 per cent between 2000 and 2008, pulling 325 million people out of poverty (World Bank, 2010). Global growth has been accompanied by environmental degradation and in some cases there are growing numbers of people still living in poverty. Key questions for development planning today in countries include: Can developing countries strike a balance between economic growth, societal well-being and environmental protection? Can inclusive, green growth be a way forward? This report presents a case study on Cambodia designed to answer these questions. The case study draws on several sources of information to compile a "snapshot" of the situation today. In particular, qualitative information was gathered through a two-day, multi-stakeholder workshop and through bilateral interviews conducted with relevant actors from both public and private sectors.
This report synthesises the findings from six case studies of urban green growth policies, four at city level (Paris, Chicago, Stockholm, Kitakyushu) and two at the national level (China, Korea). It offers a definition of urban green growth and a framework for analysing how it might play out in different types of cities. It demonstrates the importance of urban policies for achieving national environmental policy goals and discusses the increased efficiency of policy intervention at the urban level. It identifies urban activities to reduce environmental impact that are most likely to contribute to the policy priorities of job creation, urban attractiveness, metro-regional supply of green products and services, and increased urban land values. It also provides guidance on addressing potential financing and governance challenges that may arise in pursuing urban green growth. Finally, the report offers a preliminary proposal for how green growth in cities could be measured.
A key area of public policy is the question of how, and how much, to protect the environment. At the heart of this has been the heated debate over the nature of the relationship between economic growth and environmental sustainability. Is environmental sustainability economic growth or “green growth”, a contradiction in terms?
Avoiding the confusion that often surrounds these issues, Ekins provides rigorous expositions of the concept of sustainability, integrated environmental and economic accounting, the Environmental Kuznets Curve, the economics of climate change and environmental taxation. Individual chapters are organised as self-contained, state-of-the-art expositions of the core issues of environmental economics, with extensive cross-referencing from one chapter to another, in order to guide the student or policy-maker through these complex problems.
In recent years the manufacturing of renewable-energy technologies has become truly global. The associated rise in international investment and trade in goods and services related to renewable energy has been rapid, but it has not always been smooth. Already there have been challenges at the WTO, and the unilateral imposition of countervailing and anti-dumping duties, in response to some countries‘ policies on the grounds that they distort trade. Against this background, this paper surveys, through the lenses of market-pull and technology-push policies, the numerous domestic incentives used by governments to promote renewable energy, focusing on those that might have implications for trade — both those that are likely to increase opportunities for trade and those that may be inhibiting imports or promoting exports. Many OECD countries, and an increasing number of non-OECD countries, have established national targets for renewable energy. To help boost the rate of penetration of renewable energy in their economies, most of the same countries are providing additional incentives.