Austerity argument against green economy doesn't hold water: UN

With so many developing countries launching green economic policies, how can anyone still argue that renewable energy, efficiency and sustainability are luxuries we can’t afford in an age of austerity?

That’s the bottom-line message in “Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication,” the latest report from the United Nations Environment Programme. The study also finds that a large number of countries — from China and Armenia to South Korea and Ukraine — are promoting that message through a wide variety of green initiatives.

“With the world looking ahead to the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development in June 2012, the UNEP Green Economy report challenges the myth that there is a trade-off between the economy and the environment,” said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. “With smart public policies, governments can grow their economies, generate decent employment and accelerate social progress in a way that keeps humanity’s ecological footprint within the planet’s carrying capacity.”

The report, based on three years of research involving hundreds of experts from around the globe, underwent a three-month public review before its release. Its key finding is that an investment of just 2 percent of global GDP, distributed across 10 sectors, would be enough to kick-start a worldwide green economy. Furthermore, such a green economy would likely grow at least as quickly — if not more quickly — than the current business-as-usual economy.

Other findings highlighted in the report:

• A global green economy would produce per capita incomes higher than those under current economic models, while reducing the ecological footprint by nearly 50 percent by 2050.
• While some short-term job losses in some sectors — fisheries, for example — are inevitable, the number of “new and decent” green jobs created over time will offset those losses.
• China has become the world’s top investor in renewable energy, spending $49 billion in 2010. It’s also committed to more than doubling that over the next five years, with a commitment to spend $468 billion on renewable energy, clean technologies, waste management and other industries.
• Other countries — including Barbados, Cambodia, Indonesia, South Korea and South Africa — already have national green economy plans that reflect the recommendations of the UNEP report. And many — among them, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Kenya, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Senegal and Ukraine — are focusing on greening priority sectors such as agriculture, renewable energy, tourism and clean technologies.

“The elements of a transition to a green economy are clearly emerging across developing and developed countries alike,” said Achim Steiner, UN Under Secretary General and executive director of UNEP. “There are now some nations going further and faster than others which is in many ways generating a ‘pull factor’ that, if maintained, may bring others along over the coming months and years.”