UN Launches Green Economy Initiative to Refocus World Economy

On October 22, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and leading economists launched the Green Economy Initiative, which called on the world to refocus the global economy towards investments in renewable energy technologies and natural infrastructures. It will focus on five sectors: clean energy technologies, rural energy, sustainable agriculture, deforestation, and sustainable cities. "The financial, fuel and food crises of 2008 are in part a result of speculation and a failure of governments to intelligently manage and focus markets," said Achim Steiner, the US undersecretary general and UNEP executive director. "But they are also part of a wider market failure triggering ever deeper and disturbing losses of natural capital and nature-based assets coupled with an over-reliance of finite, often subsidized fossil fuels." Advocates of the Initiative believe it will result in government action when finance ministers meet in New York for the Financing for Development-Doha Review conference in November. "Transformative ideas need to be discussed and transformative decisions taken. The alternative is more boom and bust cycles; a climate-stressed world and a collapse of fish stocks and fertile soils up to forest ecosystems," said Steiner.

For additional information see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/22/climate-change-renewab...
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=548&Ar...

(This article is from EESI's weekly electronic newsletter Climate Change News . To read more from Climate Change News or sign up for a free subscription, please click here .)