Launch Meeting of the Green Economy Initiative

Geneva, 1 - 2 December 2008

This meeting was convened in Geneva on 1-2 December 2008 to launch the "Green Economy" initiative. This initiative’s objective is to enable global leaders and economic, finance, trade, environmental and other policymakers to recognise environmental investment’s contributions to economic growth, decent jobs creation, and poverty reduction, and reflect this recognition in their policy responses to the prevailing economic crisis and beyond.

Despite efforts over the past decades to demonstrate the inter-dependency between the environment and human well-being, the environment continues to receive marginal attention in economic policymaking. Massive investments have gone into the housing bubbles and the illusive financial derivatives in the developed world. Worldwide, billions of dollars are spent annually to subsidise carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Meanwhile, investment in renewable energy remains inadequate, posing threat to affordable and secure energy supply. Investment in the agricultural sector including water and soil conservation has actually declined in the last ten years in the developing world, threatening food security when the world’s major food producers are subsidised to turn food into biofuels. A major reason for this continued environmental neglect is the lack of a powerful economic case for investing in the environment.

The Green Economy initiative is to make that economic case. It will prove that environmental areas such as ecosystems, clean and efficient technology, renewable energy, chemical and waste management, biodiversity based business, and sustainable cities, buildings, construction, and transport are the new engines for economic growth in the future. It will argue that investing in these sectors can contribute to rapid economic recovery in the short term and sustained economic growth over the next few decades with positive contributions to decent job creation and poverty reduction.

This initial meeting provided an opportunity for policymakers, business executives, analysts, representatives from non-n-governmental and civil society organizations, and media to share their perspectives on the shape of a global green economy. This will set the tone for the Green Economy initiative. Apart from a broad exchange on the concept of a green economy, a significant part of the meeting was also devoted to discussions on analytical tasks to be implemented over the next 18-24 months.

Back to main page of the Green Economy Initiative page

Contact: hussein.abaza@unep.ch

Photos credit: Natascha Weisert/Maximedia