Green Economy

Introduction of Green Economy:

A green economy is defined as low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive. In a green economy, growth in employment and income are driven by public and private investment into such economic activities, infrastructure and assets that allow reduced carbon emissions and pollution, enhanced energy and resource efficiency, and prevention of the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

A green economy is an economy that aims at reducing environmental hazards and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without affecting the environment. It is closely related with ecological economics, but has a more politically applied focus

UN role in Green Economy:

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system

The 2011 UNEP Green Economy Report argues “that to be green, an economy must not only be efficient, but also fair. Fairness implies recognizing global and country level equity dimensions, particularly in assuring a transition to an economy that is low-carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive.”

UN Environment promotes a development path that understands natural capital as a critical economic asset and a source of public benefits, especially for poor people whose livelihoods depend on natural resources. The notion of green economy does not replace sustainable development, but creates a new focus on the economy, investment, capital and infrastructure, employment and skills and positive social and environmental outcomes across Asia and the Pacific

Role of Green Economy

The role of Green Economy, Sustainable Consumption and Production and Resource Efficiency for Sustainable Development: Sustainable Consumption and Production aims to improve production processes and consumption practices to reduce resource consumption, waste generation and emissions across the full life cycle of processes and products – while Resource Efficiency refers to the ways in which resources are used to deliver value to society and aims to reduce the amount of resources needed, and emissions and waste generated, per unit of product or service. The Green Economy provides a macro-economic approach to sustainable economic growth with a central focus on investments, employment and skills.

Areas of Current Work on Green Economy:

The three main areas for the current work on Green Economy are:

1) Advocacy of macro-economic approach to sustainable economic growth through regional, sub-regional and national level.

2) Demonstration of Green Economy approaches with a central focus on access to green finance, technology and investments

3) Support to countries in terms of development and mainstreaming of macro-economic policies to support the transition to a Green Economy

Finance and investing for environment:

Eco-Investing or green investing, is a form of social responsible investing where investments are made in companies that support or provide environment friendly products and practices. These companies encourage (and often profit from) new technologies that support the transition from carbon dependence to more sustainable alternatives. Green finance is any structured financial activity that has been created to ensure a better environmental outcome.

The Global Climate Prosperity Scoreboard – launched by Ethical Markets Media and The Climate Prosperity Alliance to monitor private investments in green companies – estimated that over 1.3 trillion dollars has been invested in solar, wind, geothermal, ocean/hydro and other green sectors since 2007.

Poverty Environment Action and Sustainable development:

70% of the world’s poor men and women draw upon natural resources for most of their livelihoods. Farmlands, grasslands, forests, freshwaters and oceans are the sources of more than half of the income of poor households worldwide. Yet those natural resources which are the basis of the GDP of the poor are rapidly being degraded across the globe.

The 2030 Agenda reflects the major poverty-environment challenges facing the world’s population: depleted natural capital, climate vulnerability, gender inequality, rural-urban migration and growing resource demands – all of those disproportionately harm the livelihoods and well-being of the poor.

Poverty-Environment Action for Sustainable Development Goals promotes an integrated approach that brings poverty, environment and climate objectives into the heart of national and subnational plans, policies, budgets and public and private finance to strengthen the sustainable management of natural resources and to alleviate poverty.

In 2018, United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched Poverty-Environment Action for Sustainable Development Goals. It builds on more than a decade of experience of its predecessor, the Poverty-Environment Initiative.

We are extending the previous Initiative’s strategy along with three complementary lines:

1. Aligning public and private finance and investments with poverty, environment and climate actions to accelerate implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

2. Deepening countries’ efforts to integrate environmental sustainability and climate objectives for poverty eradication into development planning, budgeting and monitoring systems.

3. Broadening South-South cooperation, partnerships and knowledge-sharing to use integrated tools for sustainable development.

Partnerships are an important part of Poverty-Environment Action and, building on its core UN Environment-UNDP collaboration, the program will reach out to various actors involved in sustainable development, poverty eradication and environmental sustainability for green economies.