Green Economy Initiative

Global News October 2008[]

UNEP launches "Global Green New Deal", October 22 ^[1]

'Green New Deal' can save the world's economy, says UN, October 12 ^[2] topic

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UNEP's Green Economy Initiative, or global Green New Deal echoes President Franklin D Roosevelt's famous recovery-focused New Deal at the time of the Great Depression.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 2008 may prove to be a watershed year with food and fuel crises swiftly followed by a financial one. UNEP argues for a Green New Deal to deal with the even greater global challenges of our time: climate change; poverty; job creation for the 1.3 billion people under or unemployed, accelerating natural resource scarcity and the need to fuel and to feed six billion, rising to nine billion people by 2050.

"A new Green Deal, generating businesses in renewable energies; clean tech ventures, sustainable agriculture, conservation and the intelligent management of the planet's ecosystems and nature-based infrastructure is already underway. Accelerating this transition is at the core of the Green Economy initiative." The Green Economy Initiative, which has close to $4 million-worth of funding from the European Commission, Germany and Norway, builds in part on a request by the G8+5 group of nations two years ago. The Green Economy initiative has three pillars - valuing and mainstreaming nature's services into national and international accounts; employment generation through green jobs and the laying out the policies; instruments and market signals able to accelerate a transition to a Green Economy.

Quotes[]

"The flip side of the coin is the enormous economic, social and environmental benefits likely to arise from combating climate change and re-investing in natural infrastructure - benefits ranging from new green jobs in clean tech and clean energy businesses up to ones in sustainable agriculture and conservation-based enterprises," Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director