  UNEP executive director Achim Steiner
By Taro Ichikawa
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
TOKYO (IDN) – While the fate of global climate change negotiations hangs in balance since the botched Copenhagen summit four months ago, brisk activity is being unfolded around the world to face environmental challenges, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and powering growth for a global green economy.
The reason: Protecting the environment, and mitigating and adapting to climate change is not only the backbone of sustainable development in industrialized, rapidly industrializing and developing countries, but also a lucrative business and subsequently an important source of sustainable income.
In view of this, it is not surprising that a new United Nations-backed study shows that countries forged ahead with low-carbon growth economic strategies in the first quarter of 2010 despite the uncertainty surrounding international climate negotiations.
The good news is derived from the annual Climate Competitiveness Index (CCI), created by the independent non-profit institute AccountAbility in partnership with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
The institute investigated “climate accountability” to confirm if a country’s climate strategy is clear, ambitious and supported by stakeholders and “climate performance” to consider each country’s capabilities and track record on delivering its strategy.
The Index was released at this year’s Business for the Environment (B4E) summit April 21-23 in Seoul, the South Korean capital. The meeting was attended by more than 1,000 representatives from business, government, and civil society.
Analyzing 95 countries responsible for 97 per cent of global economic activity and 96 per cent of global carbon emissions, the index concludes that despite gaps in performance and accountability, 46 per cent of countries demonstrated some improvement in climate accountability since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in the Danish capital in December 2009.
According to the index, 32 countries made significant improvements, with Germany, China and South Korea being the outstanding examples. India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, the Philippines and Rwanda also enhanced their climate accountability.
“This report comes as a breath of fresh air,” said Alex MacGillivray, managing director at AccountAbility. “The CCI shows that countries at all levels of development can develop political leadership, stronger institutions and engaging with stakeholders to deliver climate competitiveness.
“Climate competitiveness is no longer rhetoric. It is a real, massive and dynamic economic frontier. This latest analysis proves that governments are seizing opportunities for green growth and making significant strides to tackle the climate crisis,” he added.
Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Japan and France show the most consistent progress on combining accountability and performance. Switzerland and Austria are strong on performance, while Britain and United States are strong on accountability.
The CCI shows that South Korea, Hong Kong and Malaysia are developing good strategies and Brazil, South Africa, India and China are progressing towards climate competitiveness. Climate Competitiveness is the ability of an economy to create enduring economic value through low carbon technology, products and services.
The CCI predicts that the global market for low carbon products and services will be in excess of two trillion U.S. dollars by 2020. However, to secure this market, countries need ambitious climate competitiveness strategies, as well as the institutional infrastructure to build markets and convince investors, it notes.
It concludes that business must play a proactive role in promoting climate competitiveness. Countries that perform well on the CCI have a critical mass of firms managing, reporting on and reducing their emissions, while aggressively growing portfolios of low carbon products and services.
In an associated development, UNEP released a new publication to help companies understand how they can be part of the transition to low-carbon, resource-efficient green economy.
The agency said biodiversity is a building block for the natural system on which much of the world’s wealth depends directly or indirectly, yet too few in business realize the extent of the risks and potential rewards of managing their impact on this key nature-based asset.
The publication, previewed at the summit in Seoul – entitled ‘Are you a green leader? Business and biodiversity: making the case for a lasting solution’ – examines a broad spectrum of business, including mining, energy, agrifoods, fisheries and aquaculture, construction, forestry, tourism, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, fashion and finance.
“Many sectors rely on raw materials such as timber, fish, cotton, crops and clean water, or work with supplies and suppliers throughout the life-cycle of production processes,” UNEP said in a statement. “But many do not realize how threatened those supplies are, and fail to include this in their calculations and business plans.”
CHAMPIONS OF THE EARTH
At a gala event in Seoul to mark International Mother Earth’s Day in conjunction with the B4E summit, United Nations Champions of the Earth prize was awarded April 22 to President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana, who is a passionate forestry and ecosystem infrastructure proponent, and Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed, an international climate change campaigner.
They were among six winners from government, science, business and entertainment to be awarded this year’s prize for leadership in environmental conservation. Others winners include: Afghanistan’s Director General of the National Environmental Protection Agency and sustainability advocate, Prince Mostapha Zaher, and Japanese earth scientist and pioneer of research into how the oceans cycle carbon, Taro Takahashi.
Chinese actress Zhou Xun received the award for her reputation as a green lifestyle guru. Through her “tips for green living” initiative, Ms. Xun encourages people to reduce their carbon print through simple changes in lifestyle, Steiner said.
Also the U.S. venture capitalist and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla was recognized for his efforts as a green energy entrepreneur. In September 2009, Khosla’s venture capital firm announced it had raised 1.1 billion dollars for a 'green fund' that would be used to spur development of renewable energy and other clean technologies.
“The six winners represent some of the key pillars upon which society can build green growth and a development path to unite rather than divide six billion people,” said Achim Steiner, Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director.
The Champions of the Earth, an international environment award established in 2004, recognizes achievements in areas of entrepreneurial vision, policy and leadership, science and innovation, inspiration and action. The year’s awards had a special category for biodiversity and ecosystems management. To date, the award has recognized 34 outstanding environmental leaders.
In tune with the growing enthusiasm for green economy, experts from 75 countries gathered in Geneva on April 8 for a UN-backed meeting to discuss the social and environmental impact of transitioning to a more environmentally-friendly economy.
More than 600 delegates to 30th Annual Conference of the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA), hosted by UNEP looked at the five sectors that have been identified as key green investment opportunities – agriculture, industry, tourism, cities and transportation.
“When they met in Bali (Indonesia) two months ago, the world’s environment ministers emphasized that the full impacts of green economy policies should be assessed, including environmental, social and economic aspects,” said Steiner.
“Professionals involved in impact assessments thus have an important role to play in delivering more intelligent and sustainable choices to their customers and clients including governments, business, local authorities and civil society: choices that can direct investments to fit local, national and regional needs while addressing the broad agenda of low carbon, resource efficient development, poverty eradication and higher levels of decent employment,” he added.
One of the key goals of the conference – hosted for the first time by a UN agency – was to present the tools and methods that will help countries to assess and identify which green investments to make.
Nick Taylor, President of the IAIA, said: “A growing field of expertise, impact assessment can evaluate the linkages between investments and the environment, health, job creation, economic diversification and poverty reduction. This forum comes at a time when there’s heightened interest in the potential of impact assessments, so it’s vital experts exchange information and contribute to a growing body of knowledge.”
UNEP’s flagship Green Economy Report, to be released later in the year, will present in-depth assessments of ten sectors based on economic analysis and modelling. Three of the report's chapter authors will be present to share some of the report's preliminary analysis.
World-renowned experts and institutions from both developed and developing countries are working with a UNEP team led by Pavan Sukhdev, a former senior banker from Deutsche Bank, to develop the report. An “open architecture” framework has been adopted in preparing the report to allow the gathering of a wide-range of analyses and examples.
IAIA is a global network for best practice in the use of impact assessment for informed decision-making regarding policies, programmes, plans and projects. It brings together researchers, practitioners, and users of various types of impact assessment from around the world. (IDN-InDepthNews/25.04.2010)
Copyright © 2010 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters
-----
Related IDN articles:
http://www.indepthnews.net/area2.php?key=EV
|
