UN AND REPUBLIC OF KOREA PARTNER TO BOOST ‘GREEN’ GROWTH

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has joined forces with the Republic of Korea (ROK) to support the East Asian nation's quest for a sustainable 'green' economic future in the midst of a global recession.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner noted that Asia – particularly the ROK, China and Japan – as well as Australia have seen the greatest share of economic stimulus packages channelled into environmental investment.

The ROK's strategy "cuts across a wide swathe of sustainability challenges from renewable energy and waste to transport, freshwaters and forestry – fostering a green recovery and transforming it into a vision of green economic growth and underlining a new and dynamic strategic direction and journey that we are delighted and excited to share," he said.

In January, the country launched a nearly $40 billion stimulus plan, with more than 80 per cent allocated to environmentally-friendly investment, further expanding its "Green New Deal" into a five-year $84 billion plan.

Under the new partnership, UNEP has reviewed the ROK's green strategy, the first of a series of national and regional initiatives as part of the agency's Green Economy initiative. The assessment notes that regulatory and fiscal reforms will drive sustainable growth.

Earlier this year, UNEP encouraged governments to seize the historic opportunity presented by the current financial and economic crises to increase public spending and private investment to promote green growth.

One per cent of global gross domestic product – approximately $750 billion – should be utilized over the next two years to foster the transition towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient economy better equipped to tackle the environmental, developmental and social challenges posed by the 21st century, the agency said.

UNEP said that the ROK is among several nations taking the lead on the issue of climate change. Under the Kyoto Protocol, whose first commitment period ends in 2012, the country is not obligated to slash emissions of harmful greenhouse gases.

This December in Copenhagen, Denmark, countries are expected to wrap up negotiations on a new climate change deal. World leaders "must 'seal a deal' in the name of humankind," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said earlier this week in the ROK capital, Seoul, at Korea University.

Meanwhile, in the ROK city of Daejeon, 700 young people attending the largest-ever UN-backed global youth gathering on global warming issued a call to take urgent action against climate change.

Ranging in age from 10 to 24, they issued a declaration, entitled "Listen to Our Voices: The Future Needs Strong Vision and Leadership," expressing their "concern and frustration that their governments are not doing enough to combat climate change," and emphasizing that "we now need more actions and less talking."

The week-long Tunza Children and Youth Conference on the Environment is part of the UN's "Seal the Deal" campaign spearheaded by the Secretary-General, who has made tackling global warming one of his top priorities.

The young people's "voices will and must be heard because they will inherit the outcomes of our actions," Mr. Ban said.

Today's declaration asks governments to, among other things, agree on a more fair, just and action-oriented post-Kyoto agreement; develop and implement carbon action plans to be monitored by an independent body; and support youth efforts to bring about change in the world.

"This statement is the fruit of a diversity of views and voices from young people of different ages and cultures," said Mr. Steiner. "We very much hope the spirit set by these young people will be reflected in the negotiations that will take place in December."
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EXPERTS AT UN-BACKED FORUM CALL FOR MAJOR GOVERNMENT INVESTMENT IN GREEN ECONOMY

Participants at a United Nations-backed conference heard calls today for greater investment and robust government policies to allow a shift towards a low-carbon, environmentally friendly economy with "green industry" at its core.

"The current global financial and economic crisis must be used to our advantage to bring about a green energy revolution," said Kandeh K. Yumkella, Director-General of the UN Industrial Development Organization.

"Promoting domestic and international policies that encourage green investment in the next decade should be a major priority for a climate deal to be concluded in Copenhagen," stressed Mr. Yumkella, referring to the UN conference in December aimed at reaching an ambitious new greenhouse gas emission reduction agreement to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Mr. Yumkella was speaking at the opening of the three-day event in Vienna, "Towards an Integrated Energy Agenda Beyond 2020," organized by UNIDO, the Austrian Government, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the Global Forum on Sustainable Energy.

The conference is designed to provide a framework to guide the path "towards a low-carbon global green economy powered by green industry," Mr. Yumkella told some 500 government officials, energy and economics experts, and civil society representatives attending the gathering.

Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, said that energy remained the "missing Millennium Development Goal," referring to the set of anti-poverty targets world leaders have pledged to try to achieve by 2015.

Mr. Pachauri said that without an adequate supply of energy to the poor, there could be "no talk about eliminating poverty in the world."

IIASA Director, Detlof von Winterfeldt, stressed that today over 2 billion people were without access to modern energy services, but the Global Energy Assessment (GEA) – the most comprehensive analysis of worldwide energy challenges – suggests energy for everyone is not only achievable but also affordable if the political will exists.

"We are facing a convergence of challenges that require a fundamental transformation of energy systems, 'business-as-usual' solutions are not an option," said Mr. von Winterfeldt.

"The magnitude, pace, and scale of the impact of climate change is greater than predicted even as recently as a couple of years ago – the need to respond to this change is urgent," he said.

Mr. von Winterfeldt said that a tripling of the current $350 billion annual investment in energy, over $100 billion of which is in renewable energy, is needed to meet global energy challenges, adding that an opportunity exists "in the several stimulus packages introduced by many countries in response to the global financial and economic crisis" to find the funding necessary for the shift towards a green economy.
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UN ENVIRONMENT CHIEF CALLS ON GOVERNMENTS TO INVEST IN ‘NEW GREEN DEAL’

The head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has called on governments to invest a significant amount of their $3 trillion-worth of stimulus packages in a new "green economy" to defeat the crises facing the world.

Governments must play their part in shaping and focusing markets to deliver long-term environmental benefits if the world is to surmount the current food, fuel, financial and economic crises it faces, said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner in a speech at Tel Aviv University yesterday.

Mr. Steiner told the audience that time and again resource-efficient, low-carbon and environmentally friendly products and processes have failed to make their way out of research laboratories. "The market failed to read the writing on the wall or see the climate and energy security street signs coming up fast on the international highway."

He noted that the oil crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s saw around $1 billion of investment into research and development in solar powered energy halving the cost per unit of electricity, not enough for commercialization.

"The oil price dropped and so did widespread enthusiasm for solar power. Only now are generation prices beginning to fall towards competitiveness [but] we have wasted nearly three precious decades," he added.

He noted, however, a UNEP Policy Brief for a Global Green New Deal, which highlights the benefits of investing a significant amount of proposed government economic stimulus money on five key sectors from renewable energy to sustainable transport.

"The question now is how will the around $3 trillion-worth of stimulus packages be spent-on the old brown economy or a new green one that might set the stage for a truly sustainable century?" asked Mr. Steiner.

The Brief – developed with economists, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) among others – spotlights how some economies, including China, Korea, the United States and the United Kingdom, have already committed part of their stimulus packages to green investments.

Mr. Steiner stressed that investing 1 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) into five key sectors could be key to a "Global Green New Deal."

These areas include raising the energy efficiency of old and new buildings, as well as investing in renewable energies including wind, solar, geothermal and biomass.
The three other areas are sustainable transport including hybrid vehicles; high-speed rail and bus rapid transit systems; the planet's ecological infrastructure including freshwaters, forests, soils and coral reefs; and sustainable agriculture including organic production.

"The Policy Brief also calls for a range of specific measures aimed at assisting poorer countries to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and green their economies," noted Mr. Steiner.

The measures include an expansion of microcredit schemes for clean energy, reform of subsidies from fossil fuels to fisheries and the greening of overseas development aid, he said.

"Japan, which has already launched a multi-billion yen green stimulus package for its economy, has just announced a $5 billion loan fund for developing economies seeking to boost their renewable energy sector," he pointed out.
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