According to the UN Environment Program, a green economy is low carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive economy. In a green economy, employment and income growth is driven by investments in green initiatives.
This article explores the principles and impacts of Green Economy.
What Is A Green Economy Initiative?
A green initiative works to reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. These green investments are supported through targeted public expenditure, policy reforms, and changes in taxation.
What Does The UN Environment Program Suggest To Support A Green Economy?
UN Environment promotes a development path to understand natural capital as a critical economic asset and source of public benefits. They advocate specifically for poor people whose livelihoods depend on natural resources.
Does Green Economy Counteract Sustainable Development?
The Green Economy creates a new focus, alongside sustainable development, which is directed towards the economy, investment, capital and infrastructure, employment and social and environmental outcomes. The Green Economy provides a macro-economic approach towards sustainable economic growth.
What Are The Three Main Areas Of The Green Economy?
- Advocacy of macro-economic approach to sustainable economic growth – this is performed regionally, sub-regionally, and nationally
- Green Economy approaches to finance, technology, and investments
- Support for the development of countries through mainstreaming of macro-economic policies
What Is The Green Economy Vision?
The Green Economy vision is one of global prosperity within the ecological limits of the planet. It aims to combat the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and growing inequality through greener and fairer initiatives.
What Does Green Economy Want To Change?
According to Green Economy Coalition, our economies are ‘fundamentally flawed’ with its prioritization of consumption over sustainability. Green Economy principles take issue with the idea of wealth for the few at the expense of the many. Moreover, Green Economy works to counter the climate change and mass extinctions caused by the current economy.
Green Economy wants a revitalization of global economies to reflect a fairer, greener, and more resilient system.
What Are The Five Main Principles Of A Green Economy?
- The Well-being Principle: enabling prosperity amongst all people through green and decent livelihoods, built on collective action and individual choices
- The Justice Principle: promoting equity inclusively with equitable distribution of opportunity and outcome with fast and fair transitions. This incorporates its goals for solidarity and social justice
- The Planetary Boundaries Principle: restoring and investing in nature to support biodiversity, natural systems, and local community livelihoods
- The Efficiency and Sufficiency Principle: supporting sustainable consumption and production by aligning prices with the true costs of society
- The Good Governance Principle: guiding Green Economy with accountable institutions of public participation and devolved decision-making
What Impact Has Green Economy Already Made?
Green Economy Coalition was founded in 2009 as the world’s largest movement for green and fair economies. Since 2009, they have built an international network of charities, businesses, and citizen’s groups.
Green Economy Coalition is recognized amongst key institutions and governments, and was at the heart of coronavirus recovery plans. They launched the Green Economy Tracker to chart national progress across 20 green economy policies, and publish annual Green Economy Barometers to track governments’ green economic progress worldwide.
Who Is Involved In Green Economy Advocacy?
Over 50 member organizations, such as multilateral agencies, civil societies, businesses, thinktanks, youth and citizens’ movements are part of the Green Economy Coalition. Some partnerships include major institutions like OECD, UNEP, UNDP, ILO, GGGI, WWF, and the Capitals Coalition. The Green Economy Coalition are recognized by UN PAGE as significant in delivering the green and fair agenda.
Ordinary people have been invited to join the Green Economy Coalition since 2016, after 8 dialogue hubs in Brazil, India, Peru, Mongolia, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, and the Caribbean were co-developed. This involves over 5000 participants in over 100 dialogue events which aim to empower citizens to hold governments accountable.
Conclusion
Green Economy is an initiative which works to revitalize the hyper-consumerist current economy to create greener and fairer system. It tracks worldwide green economic progress with hopes to lessen the damages of climate change to biodiversity and individual livelihoods.
