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"Rio+20 and the "Green Economy"
The EUECE discussion on the Transition to a
"Green Economy"
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Palais des Nations - Geneva, 1 December 2011:
In one room, UNCTAD and EnergyPact are presenting our energy future to a few participants, including sustainable Atomic Power stations - never mind Fukushima.
UNEP Geneva's Chief Economist presenting the UNEP "Key Finding" of their Green Economy Initiative.
In the other room many more delegates of governments and so-called "Civil Society" are discussing the aims of the forthcoming Rio+20 conference and the role of the "Green Economy".
UNEP's KEY Finding is that the green economy will produce more GDP growth than Business As Usual.....
Yet GDP growth is always material and cannot be "decoupled" from material resource consumption. UNEP's "decoupling" claims are based on selective and faulty interpretations of academic studies.
"Green growth" in a so-called "Green Economy" is a counterproductive delusion, leading to the continuation of our road towards total depletion and collapse.
Continued growth is based on illusionary ever-increasing efficiencies and the fantasy of "dematerialisation". See the annotated UN Press release .
At the UNCTAD-EnergyPact and at the EUECE conference (Geneva, end 2011) a number of delegates raised doubts about the effect of the Green Economy on the poorer countries, the "South".
Compare: Behind the 'Green Economy': Profiting from environmental and climate crisis (June 2012)
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[colored highlights, comments and corrections by ecoglobe.ch] 
Beijing, 16 November 2011 – A new UN report demonstrates [correct is: "argues"] that governments and
businesses alike are taking steps to accelerate a global shift towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient
and socially inclusive green future. ["green" is undefined.
If "green" means "sustainable", then "sustainability" should be defined as a societal situation that can be carried on for a long time without change, i.e.a state of society that consumes resources not faster than nature's speed of regeneration.]
From China to Barbados, Brazil to South Africa, countries are developing Green Economy
strategies and activities to spur greater economic growth and jobs, environmental protection
and equality. [Economic growth is always material and therefore increases the impact on the environmental and the depletion rates of resources. Growth cannot be "green" or sustainable! Growth means "more". It's the difference in GDP between one year and the previous one. GDP equals money and money represents resources and work, including so-called "services". A higher GDP means more resources consumed.]
In a statement issued on the release of UNEP’s flagship report, Towards a Green Economy:
Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication, UN Secretary General Ban
Ki Moon said: "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. [There is no "myth" and no "trade-off". Our economy does indeed exploit, deplete and destroy the environment. That's a fact, which no report can successfully "challenge". The economy lives of and depletes the environment. Without environmental resources the economy is dead. A dematerialised economy is colossal nonsense. ]
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." [We have exceeded the planet's carying capacity manifold. Growth and sustainability and mutually exclusive. The so-called "ecological footprint" accounts for renewables only and a token share of carbon emissions, based on illusionary sequestration. Growth is always increasing our Resource Use Footprint, which is far higher than the so-called "ecological footprint".]
Key Messages
The report, a result of a three-year global research effort involving hundreds of experts,
underwent a three-month public review before being unveiled today. It confirms [correct is: "argues"] that an
investment of two percent of global GDP across 10 key sectors is what is required to kickstart
a shift from the current brown, polluting and inefficient economy to a green one.
- The report estimates that such a transition would grow the global economy at
around the same rate, if not higher, than those forecast, under current economic
models.
- But without rising risks, shocks, scarcities and crises increasingly inherent in the
existing, resource-depleting, high carbon 'brown' economy, says the study.
- In addition to higher growth, an overall transition to a Green Economy would
realize per capita incomes higher than under current economic models, while
reducing the ecological footprint by nearly 50 per cent in 2050, as compared to
business-as-usual. "2050" [The time scale fully ignores the changing conditions because of climate change, water, biodiversity and post peak oil scarcities, which are expected to hit hard any time soon.]
- The Green Economy Report acknowledges that in the short-term, job losses in some
sectors - fisheries for example - are inevitable if they are to transition towards
sustainability.
- However, it adds that over time the number of "new and decent jobs created" in
sectors - ranging from renewable energies to more sustainable agriculture – will,
however, offset those lost from the former "brown economy".
As a result, a growing number of countries are undertaking activities to accelerate this
transition.
At the China Council meeting this week, for example, the government’s international
advisory group is expected to put forward its own study for moving towards a Green
Economy.
China is the world’s lead investor in renewable energy, overtaking Spain in 2009 and
spending US$49 billion in 2010. Overall, China is committed to spending US$468 billion
over the next five years, more than double the previous five years, on key industries,
including renewable energy, . clean technologies and waste management. ["clean" is undefined.
If "clean" means "energy generation without carbon emissions" or without wastes or resource depletion, then the term is misleading. Nothing is "clean." Wastes, emissions and resource depletion always occur, for mining, manufacturing, operation and replacement of the so-called "clean" equipment.]
“China considers the Green Economy to be a strategic choice in an increasingly resource
constrained world, and we have made that choice in our development plans,” said Mr. He
Bingguang, Director General of the Department of Resource Conservation and
Environmental Protection in China’s National Development and Reform Commission.
“We appreciate UNEP’s contribution in promoting a global Green Economy
transformation, which holds the potential for all countries to benefit,” he added.
Some countries, such as Barbados, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea and South
Africa, already have national Green Economy plans that reflect the report’s
recommendations.
Others such as 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.
Today in Rwanda, East African countries are meeting to explore how laws and regulatory
frameworks can help drive a Green Economy at the national and regional level.
Participants from Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, as well as Rwanda, will examine
case studies and continent-wide initiatives, the latter being led by the African Union.
On the business side, UNEP has teamed up with 285 of the world’s leading investors,
representing US$20 trillion in assets, who called on governments to mobilize action on
climate change, including investments in emerging industries – like renewables and green
buildings. Similar calls have been echoed by the International Chamber of Commerce,
which represents hundreds of thousands of businesses in more than 130 countries.
“The elements of a transition to a Green Economy are clearly emerging across developing
and developed countries alike. 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,” said Achim Steiner, UN Under Secretary
General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
The recent drive in clean investment is not only benefitting emerging economies, but also
other developing countries. According to the latest Bloomberg figures, global investments
in renewable energy jumped 32 per cent in 2010, to a record US$211 billion. After the
emerging economies of Brazil, China and India, countries in Africa posted the highest
percentage increase of all developing regions.
In Egypt, renewable energy investment rose by US$800 million to US$1.3 billion as a
result of the solar thermal project in Kom Ombo and a 220 megawatt onshore wind farm in
the Gulf of Zayt. In Kenya, investment climbed from virtually zero in 2009 to US$1.3
billion in 2010 across technologies such as wind, geothermal, small-scale hydro and
biofuels. [Biofuels compete with food production, directly or indirectly, and in many cases their production increases environmental degradation.]
In the California Mojave Desert, one of the world’s largest solar-thermal power plants is
under construction and others are also being built in Spain and other parts of the United
States.
“The Durban climate convention meeting in a few week’s time and Rio+20 next year are
key opportunities to accelerate and scale-up the Green Economy. Central cooperative
actions range from advancing Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation (REDD+), moving on green procurement to switch national efforts into the
sustainability space up to a new indicator of wealth that goes beyond GDP and internalizes
the costs of pollution and degradation while bringing the true value of the planet’s nature based
assets into calculations of a successful and sustainable economic path,” said Mr.
Steiner. [So-called "ionternalization" of environmental costs is another economists' fallacy. Money cannot compensate for resource depletion. Money cannot buy back lost biodiversity. The REDD+ scheme is contested. The commercialisation of previously ontouched wilderness leads to monocultures and serious biodiversity loss.]
A series of UN-backed regional consultations on the Green Economy have underscored the
growing interest in the report. While issues of financing and trade need to be addressed
further, there is an acknowledgement that the current economic model, based solely on
GDP growth, has resulted in the gross misallocation of capital and inequitable distribution of wealth. [Correct! But... Simple redistribution of wealth does not decrease the impact on the environment. In order to reduce our overshoot, the economy must contract. We must become more frugal, as Ban Ki-Moon said some years ago.]
The Report shows that investing the equivalent of two per cent of global GDP into
agriculture, energy, buildings, water, forestry, fisheries, manufacturing, waste, tourism and
transport would not only shift the global economy onto a more sustainable growth
trajectory, but it would actually maintain or increase growth over time compared to the
current business-as-usual scenario. [No growth is sustainable. All growth is material and increases the speeds of resource depletion and destruction of nature.]
Policy recommendations on each of the 10 key sectors, as well as on finance and enabling
conditions, are outlined in the report.
On transport, for example, the report suggests that prices need to take account of the
societal costs accumulated as a result of congestion, accidents and pollution, which in some
cases amount to over 10 per cent of the national or regional GDP. In Beijing, a 2009 study
estimated that the social costs induced by motorized transportation are equivalent to
between 7.5 and 15 per cent of the city’s GDP.
Globally, the transport sector’s impact on natural resources is wide-ranging, from the
manufacturing of vehicles, which uses metals and plastics, to its use of fossil fuels, which
involves engine oil, rubber and other consumable materials. Between 2007 and 2030, the
transport sector is expected to account for 97 per cent of the increase in the world’s primary oil use. [This does not consider peak oil. The Post Peak Oil Downslope is expected to start between now and 2020.]
With the number of vehicles in China expected to more than triple during this period, the
government is promoting low-carbon, energy efficient cars and related infrastructure. [This does not consider peak oil. The Post Peak Oil Downslope is expected to start between now and 2020. The population and governments will have other priorities. On the PPOD the agricultural and industrial production will start falling. Globalisation will be rolled-back. Because there is no equivant energy source, neither in quantity nor in quality to replace oil and natural gas.] In
the city of Shenzhen, home of China’s first electric car, plans are underway to build large
recharging stations and replace traditional buses with more than 7,000 electric ones in five
years time. [Electricity is a scarce resource. The increase in its generation is limited. Its availability fluctuates and cannot maintain present industrial structures and time schedule.]
Generating Jobs
The Green Economy Report suggests that over time “new and decent jobs” will be
catalyzed in these key sectors. A recent study by ILO and the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences (CASS), entitled, Low Carbon Development and Green Employment in China,
confirms that this is the case.
It provides a list of likely winners and losers and the scale of direct and indirect impact
involved to identify net gains. It concludes that while 800,000 workers in small coal power
plants in China are likely to lose their jobs due to climate mitigation actions, some 2.5
million jobs could be created by 2020 in the wind energy sector alone.
Currently, Denmark is home to the world’s top wind turbine manufacturer in terms of
market volume, and China is in second place, followed by the United States and then
another Chinese company. Germany ranks fifth. However, Germany has recently
committed to scale up its renewable energy, following a decision to phase out nuclear
power by 2022, and has thus set a target to source 35 per cent of its electricity from
renewable energies by 2022, instead of the earlier target of 19 per cent.
In Africa, despite recent economic gains, there is increasing interest in creating green and
decent employment. Representatives from 11 African countries met in June this year with
ILO, UNDP and UNEP to look at case studies in the areas of recycling, sustainable
construction and natural resource management. As a result, participants adopted action
plans for creating green jobs in fisheries, agriculture and forestry, sectors which represent
over 70 per cent of the employment in the region.
In Brazil, the ILO recently helped support the construction of 500,000 new homes with
solar heating systems, resulting in 30,000 new jobs. In South Africa, a similar project on
water ecosystem restoration created 25,000 green jobs for previously unemployed people,
and at the same time, restored vital freshwater sources.
Generating Social Equity
Approximately two billion people live on smallholder farms, and despite making a
significant contribution to food security, the majority of these farmers are malnourished and
live in poverty. Low prices, unfair trade practice and a lack of transport contribute to their
dilemma. The Green Economy Report argues that by moving to more sustainable
agriculture practices, these farmers could increase their yields and profits.
Globally, an investment of US$100-300 billion per year in green agriculture, between now
and 2050, could lead to better soil quality and better yields for major crops, representing a
10 per cent increase over the current business-as-usual strategies. As many of these
farmers are also women, any benefits would most likely be shared with their families and
communities.
The waste sector is another area that is expected to enhance social equity. Efforts to green
the sector are often driven by cost savings, environmental awareness and resource scarcity.
However, the report notes that greening the sector not only requires improving the often
sub-standard waste treatment and disposal facilities, it also entails training the workers,
providing more equitable compensation and ensuring proper health care protection for
them. Decentralizing large scale, capital-intensive waste management operations could also
provide more employment opportunities in the community.
Electronic waste (or e-waste) is also a concern, particularly for developing countries.
Current estimates suggest 20 to 50 million tonnes of e-waste are generated each year, while
trade in waste becomes more prevalent, heightening threats to human health and the
environment.
As sales in mobile phones and computers continue to grow in China, India, and across
Africa and Latin America, the report finds that resource recovery and recycling offer the
greatest potential in terms of contributing to a Green Economy.
Notes to the Editors:
Rio Earth Summit: In 1992 the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, popularly
known as the Rio Earth Summit, was convened in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to address the
state of the environment and sustainable development. In June 2012, there will be the
follow up meeting or Rio+20 in Brazil, where one of the main themes governments are
expected to address is Green Economy “in the context of sustainable development and
poverty eradication”.
Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty
Eradication can be found on the UNEP website: www.unep.org/greeneconomy
For more information, please contact:
Nick Nuttall, UNEP Division of Communication and Public Information Acting Director
and Spokesman, Tel. +41 795 965 737 or +254 733 632 755 or email
nick.nuttall@unep.org
Ms. Jiang Nanqing, UNEP China Office, Tel. +86-10-85320922, Mobile: +86-
13501051650, Email: nanqing.jiang@unep.org
Ms. Chen Hao, UNEP China Office, Tel: +86-10-85320921, Mobile: +86-15810425490,
Email: hao.bath@gmail.com
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Green Economy Report
[Source: UNEP website]
Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication
The Green Economy Report is compiled by UNEP’s Green Economy Initiative in collaboration with economists and experts worldwide. It demonstrates that the greening of economies is not generally a drag on growth but rather a new engine of growth; that it is a net generator of decent jobs, and that it is also a vital strategy for the elimination of persistent poverty. The report also seeks to motivate policy makers to create the enabling conditions for increased investments in a transition to a green economy.
 
Title page
Acknowledgements, Forward, Contents Introduction
PART I: Investing in natural capital
Agriculture
This chapter provides evidence to inspire policy makers to support increasing green investments in the sector, and guidance on how to enable this transformation. It aims to enhance food security, reduce poverty, improve nutrition and health, create rural jobs and reduce pressure on the environment.
Fisheries
This chapter demonstrates the current economic and social value of marine fisheries to the world, and estimates the sector’s full potential if it were managed within the framework of a green economy. It also explores how to foster much needed reforms and channel investment that will help shift marine fisheries to a more sustainable future.
Water
This chapter identifies the contributions that water can play in assisting a transition to a green economy. It makes the case for early investment in water management and infrastructure to make greater use of biodiversity and ecosystem services. It also provides guidance on the government arrangements and policy reforms that can sustain and increase the benefits associated with such a transition.
Forests
The chapter on forests assesses the gap between “business-as-usual” in the forest sector and the role of forests in a green economy. It reviews the current range of green investments in the sector and how they are likely to affect both the timber industry and ecosystem services on which the livelihoods of the poorest depend.
PART II: Investing in energy and resource efficiency
Renewable Energy
This chapter makes the case for increasing investment to green the energy sector with a focus on the renewable energy supply. It describes the current world energy supply and the growing role of renewable sources of energy within it, as well as discusses the challenges and opportunities facing both governments and the energy sector.
Manufacturing
This chapter looks at the costs to the sector under a “business-as-usual” scenario and offers a number of strategic approaches to encourage green manufacturing investments in different technologies. It argues that investing in greening manufacturing can often be profitable to business and increase employment, while reducing pressure on the environment.
Waste
The chapter identifies the contributions that the waste sector can play in assisting in a transition to a green economy. It provides guidance for policy makers, and identifies the economic, environmental and social impacts of investments in the waste sector.
Buildings
The chapter makes a strong economic case greening the building sector, and provides guidance on policies and instruments needed to bring about this transformation. The chapter encompasses both new construction and the retrofitting of existing buildings, with a focus on urban areas, which are expanding and now home to more than half of the world’s population.
Transport
This chapter examines the role of transport in a green economy. Drawing on the Avoid, Shift and Improve strategy, it highlights the challenges and opportunities of shifting to a greener transport system. It also examines the various options and conditions required to enable such a transition.
Tourism
This chapter shows how green investment in this sector can contribute to economically viable and robust growth, decent work creation and poverty alleviation, while improving resource efficiency and minimising environmental degradation. It makes the case for investing in “greening” the sector and provides guidance on how to mobilise such investments.
Cities
The chapter makes a case for green cities. It describes the environmental, social and economic consequences of greening urban systems and infrastructure, and provides guidance to policy makers on how to make cities more environmentally friendly. It includes a summary of green practices and looks at the enabling conditions needed foster green cities.
PART III: Supporting the transition to a global green economy
Modelling
The analysis carried out in the GER focuses on the transition towards a green economy, characterised by high resource-efficient and low carbon intensity, assessing the needs for a short to medium term transition and evaluating the impacts of a longer-term greener economic development.
Enabling Conditions
The report demonstrates that certain enabling conditions need to be created and maintained to attract investment in green economic activity. This chapter focuses on the measures that could be feasibly introduced in the short to medium term by governments at all levels, and explores a suite of policy options and tools available to promote a global green economy transition.
Finance
The chapter examines how the green economy is currently being financed and explores the priorities and potential methods for increasing these investments. It makes the case for scaling up financing to help drive the transition and amplifying the financial sector’s role as an agent of change.
Conclusions
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Also see:
Transition to a so-called "service" economy
Annotated Press Release from the UN on the launch of the "Green Economy Report"
"Green Economy" - "The New Big Deal"
"Green Economy" - "Sustainable Growth"
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On a finite planet economic and population growth are suicide for humanity!
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