2013/03/08
Useful Information 6: Other Green Tools for the Economy
Green Growth
Green Growth is another tool generally understood as the concept of decoupling economic growth from resource depletion, with green growth indicators as a means to measure the level of green growth in an economy. This section aims to give a brief overview of what Green Growth is in relation to the proposed Green Economy Roadmap.
Article “OECD work on measuring well-being and progress towards Green Growth” published by the UNCSD, 2012.
For nearly ten years, the OECD has been working to identify better ways to measure the progress of societies – moving beyond GDP and exploring the areas that matter most for people’s lives. […] The OECD’s work on green growth indicators is a key part of its broader agenda on measuring well-being and progress. It complements conventional GDP measures by assessing countries’ progress in “decoupling” pollution and resource consumption from economic growth, as well as the impact of economic activity on natural assets and human well-being.
http://www.oecd.org/std/rioplus20%20to%20print.pdf
Publication “Towards Green Growth” published by the OECD, 2011.
There is no “one-size-fits-all” prescription for implementing strategies for green growth. Greening the growth path of an economy depends on policy and institutional settings, level of development, resource endowments and particular environmental pressure points. Advanced, emerging, and developing countries will face different challenges and opportunities, as will countries with differing economic and political circumstances. There are, on the other hand, common considerations that need to be addressed in all settings.
http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/environment/towards-green-growth_9789264111318-en
Web Forum “Green Growth Korea”
At the Presidential Committee on Green Growth(PCGG), we believe that green growth is the only option if we are to surmount the difficulties the world now faces in climate change, energy consumption and also economic hardship. Green growth is the opportunity for Korea to develop in a sustainable and responsible manner into one of the truly most advanced industrialized countries in the world. […] The green growth vision calls on government, businesses and the broader citizenry to actively participate in national development. This website is therefore a forum for open communication between all parties to ensure the successful implementation of green growth policies.
http://www.greengrowth.go.kr/?page_id=42440
Green New Deal
The Global Green New Deal is the idea of a fiscal stimulus package directed at the green industries in order to revive the world economy and promote a Green Economy in the process. This section provides publications on the concept of the GGND, how the US and South Korea are implementing it, and how it relates to a Green Economy.
Publication “A Green New Deal – The first report of the Green New Deal Group” published by the Green New Deal Group, 2008.
[The Green New Deal] entails re-regulating finance and taxation plus a huge transformational programme aimed at substantially reducing the use of fossil fuels and in the process tackling the unemployment and decline in demand caused by the credit crunch. It involves policies and novel funding mechanisms that will reduce emissions contributing to climate change and allow us to cope better with the coming energy shortages caused by peak oil. […] In the first half of this report we examine the financial, economic and environmental landscapes that are the backdrop to this triple crisis. In the second half, we propose a series of policies that can be used to tackle the problems we have identified.
http://www.neweconomics.org/sites/neweconomics.org/files/A_Green_New_Deal_1.pdf
Publication “The Green New Deal: Energizing the U.S. Economy” published by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 2009.
President Barack Obama, inspired by President Roosevelt before him, is responding to the global economic crisis by promoting job growth, but with a twist: using green energy investments, or a Green New Deal. […]One of the most unique – and valuable – elements of green job creation is the speed with which workers who have been most affected by the economic downturn could get back to work.
http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/usa/06873.pdf
Publication “Global Green New Deal – a policy brief” published by the UNEP, 2009.
The Global Green New Deal (GGND) presented here has three broad objectives. It should make a major contribution to reviving the world economy, saving and creating jobs, and protecting vulnerable groups. It should promote sustainable and inclusive growth and the achievement of the MDGs, especially ending extreme poverty by 2015. Also, it must reduce carbon dependency and ecosystem degradation – these are key risks along a path to a sustainable world economy.
http://www.unep.org/pdf/A_Global_Green_New_Deal_Policy_Brief.pdf
Publication “Technical Note – A Global Green New Deal for Climate, Energy, and Development” published by the United Nations Department of Economic Affairs, 2009.
Energy is the key to economic development, and renewable energy is the key to a future without dangerous climate change. But renewable energy is too expensive today, especially for the world’s poor, many of whom have no access to modern energy at all. Although the price of renewable energy is falling, it will not fall fast enough anywhere, on its own, to help the world win the race against time with dangerous climate change. Public policies can help produce the necessary decline in the global price of renewable energy and make it universally affordable in one to two decades.
http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/resources/res_pdfs/publications/sdt_cc/cc_global_green_new_deal.pdf
Publication “A Global Green New Deal – Response to crisis or paradigm shift towards sustainability?” published by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 2011.
In order to initiate a long-term environmental reorientation of global economic structures, the original idea of a Global Green New Deal, boosting economic growth through green economic-stimulus packages while at the same time slowing down the pace of ongoing climate change, needs to be replaced by a broader understanding along the lines of a global paradigm shift towards a just, sustainable international development and economic model.
http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/08087-20110708.pdf
Publication “Global Green New Deal – An Update for the G20 Pittsburgh Summit” published by the UNEP, 2009. Includes Data on all G20 stimulus packages.
It has been estimated that at least 15 per cent of the global stimulus packages to date can be considered green in nature. While encouraging, these commitments are largely concentrated in a few leading members of the G20 and much more is clearly needed to fill large gaps and approach a target of 1 per cent of GDP. Moreover, to achieve its desired economic effect, any fiscal stimulus, including a green one, requires swift implementation. Ensuring that this is not at the expense of transparency, accountability and effectiveness, demands both flexibility and creativity.
