A Chinese man works at a photovoltaic power plant built with Japanese help in Xining in northwest China's Qinghai province, 11 June 2008. The 300kw solar panel power plant is the first to be connected to the local power grid. | EPA/ANGHAI JIN
27 February 2011 - Investing 2% of global GDP a year, could lead to a green and sustainable future, one that will outshine predictions of GDP growth under the current economic model.
The report, ‘Towards a Green Economy’ was produced by UNEP, using a team of economic experts, under the leadership of Pavan Sukhdev, their Head of the Green Economy Initiative. The authors say the report shows that the claim that there is a trade off between environmental investment and economic growth is a myth. A second myth, is that a green economy is only for wealthy countries.
Derek Eaton, UNEP’s Programme Officer for economics and trade says the report was commissioned “when the financial crisis was raging,” adding that under the current economic model, such crisis would reoccur. He said that the 2% investment, the equivalent of $1.3 trillion needed to be backed up by “forward looking policies.”
Eaton says that, although some job losses are, in the beginning, would be inevitable, retraining and a re-configuration of the economy, away from the “current gross misallocation of capital” would not only be economically better, it would also lead to a more equal society. He says “there can no longer be business as usual”. {continued [1]}
[3]Green Economy is not only relevant to more developed economies but as a key catalyst for growth and poverty eradication in developing ones too, where in some cases close to 90 per cent of the GDP of the poor is linked to nature or natural capital such as forests and freshwaters.