Tweet
UNEP Launches Year Book 2008 at its 10th Special Session of the Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum in Monaco 20-22 February
UNEP Year Book 2008
UNEP Finance Initiative - Innovative financing for sustainability
Publications from UNEP FI's regional activities in North America.
Monaco, 20 February 2008-An emerging Green Economy is glimpsed in the latest United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) Year Book as growing numbers of companies embrace environmental policies and investors pump hundreds of billions of dollars into cleaner and renewable energies.
Climate change, as documented in the Year Book, is increasingly changing the global environment from the melting of permafrost and glaciers to extreme weather events.
But it is also beginning to change the mind-sets, policies and actions of corporate heads, financiers and entrepreneurs as well as leaders of organized labour, governments and the United Nations itself.
Increasingly, combating climate change is being perceived as an opportunity rather than a burden and a path to a new kind of prosperity as opposed to a brake on profits and employment, the new report shows.
The UNEP Year Book 2008 says the emerging green economy is also driving invention, innovation and the imagination of engineers on a scale perhaps not witnessed since the industrial revolution of more than two centuries ago.
[..]
Despite a great deal of activity and action, formidable challenges remain if all these fledgling transformations are to be sustained and embedded in the global economy over the coming years and decades.
Barriers include subsidies that favour fossil fuels over cleaner energies; tariff and trade regimes that make cleaner technologies more expensive and the risk-averse lending patterns of banks and other financial institutions when it comes to solar and wind power loans for poorer communities, the new report says.
The Year Book's findings were presented today at the opening of the largest gathering of environment ministers since the climate convention meeting in Indonesia late last year which gave birth to the Bali Road Map.
The Road Map is the climate negotiation agreement scheduled to be completed by the climate convention meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 in order to deliver a post 2012 climate regime.
The ministers, joined by senior figures from the worlds of business, organized labour, science and civil society, are attending UNEP's Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum under the theme "Mobilizing Finance for the Climate Challenge".
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "Hundreds of billions of dollars are now flowing into renewable and clean energy technologies and trillions more dollars are waiting in the wings looking to governments for a new and decisive climate regime post 2012 alongside the creative market mechanisms necessary to achieve this."
"Formidable hurdles remain as to whether these funds will ultimately seek out new, climate-friendly investments for the future or whether they will seek the lowest common denominator by flowing into the polluting technologies of the past," he said.
"Designing an attractive, creative and equitable investment landscape which rewards those willing to invest in tomorrow's economy today is the challenge before ministers here in Monaco and the challenge for the international community over the next two years in the run up to Copenhagen," said Mr Steiner.
"However I am optimistic that we can shift gears to a Green Economy. If humans can go to the Moon; submarines sent under the Arctic; liver and heart transplants perfected; the mysteries of the human genome deciphered and tiny nano-machines designed then managing a transition to a low carbon society must be within humanity's grasp and intellect," he added.
Climate change, as documented in the Year Book, is increasingly changing the global environment from the melting of permafrost and glaciers to extreme weather events.
But it is also beginning to change the mind-sets, policies and actions of corporate heads, financiers and entrepreneurs as well as leaders of organized labour, governments and the United Nations itself.
Increasingly, combating climate change is being perceived as an opportunity rather than a burden and a path to a new kind of prosperity as opposed to a brake on profits and employment, the new report shows.
The UNEP Year Book 2008 says the emerging green economy is also driving invention, innovation and the imagination of engineers on a scale perhaps not witnessed since the industrial revolution of more than two centuries ago.
[..]
Despite a great deal of activity and action, formidable challenges remain if all these fledgling transformations are to be sustained and embedded in the global economy over the coming years and decades.
Barriers include subsidies that favour fossil fuels over cleaner energies; tariff and trade regimes that make cleaner technologies more expensive and the risk-averse lending patterns of banks and other financial institutions when it comes to solar and wind power loans for poorer communities, the new report says.
The Year Book's findings were presented today at the opening of the largest gathering of environment ministers since the climate convention meeting in Indonesia late last year which gave birth to the Bali Road Map.
The Road Map is the climate negotiation agreement scheduled to be completed by the climate convention meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 in order to deliver a post 2012 climate regime.
The ministers, joined by senior figures from the worlds of business, organized labour, science and civil society, are attending UNEP's Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum under the theme "Mobilizing Finance for the Climate Challenge".
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "Hundreds of billions of dollars are now flowing into renewable and clean energy technologies and trillions more dollars are waiting in the wings looking to governments for a new and decisive climate regime post 2012 alongside the creative market mechanisms necessary to achieve this."
"Formidable hurdles remain as to whether these funds will ultimately seek out new, climate-friendly investments for the future or whether they will seek the lowest common denominator by flowing into the polluting technologies of the past," he said.
"Designing an attractive, creative and equitable investment landscape which rewards those willing to invest in tomorrow's economy today is the challenge before ministers here in Monaco and the challenge for the international community over the next two years in the run up to Copenhagen," said Mr Steiner.
"However I am optimistic that we can shift gears to a Green Economy. If humans can go to the Moon; submarines sent under the Arctic; liver and heart transplants perfected; the mysteries of the human genome deciphered and tiny nano-machines designed then managing a transition to a low carbon society must be within humanity's grasp and intellect," he added.
UNEP Finance Initiative - Innovative financing for sustainability
The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) is a unique global partnership between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the private financial sector.
UNEP FI works closely with over 160 financial institutions who are signatories to the UNEP FI Statements, and a range of partners organizations to develop and promote linkages between the environment, sustainability and financial performance. Through regional activities, a comprehensive work programme, training programmes and research, UNEP FI carries out its mission to identify, promote, and realise the adoption of best environmental and sustainability practice at all levels of financial institution operations.