Green
stimulus packages gaining momentum as a
key solution to the economic crisis - 9
January 2009 – Japan and the Republic of
Korea have announced that they will invest
billions of dollars in green projects to
create jobs and spur economic growth, in
the latest sign that the Green New Deal
advocated by the United Nations is gaining
momentum.
Japan has announced
that it aims to expand the ‘green business’
market and create up to 1 million new jobs,
with measures including zero-interest rate
loans for environmentally-friendly companies.
South Korea, meanwhile,
will invest 38 billion dollars over the
next four years in a series of eco-friendly
projects to create 960,000 new jobs and
lay the groundwork for economic growth.
The 36 projects include the creation of
green transport networks, the provision
of two million energy-saving ‘green homes’
and the clean-up of the country’s four main
rivers.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary
General and UNEP Executive Director, said:
“Investments in clean-tech and renewable
energy; infrastructure such as railways
and cycle tracks and nature-based services
like river systems and forests, can not
only counter recession and unemployment
but can also set the stage for more sustainable
economic recovery and growth in the 21st
century.”
“UNEP’s Global Green
New Deal and Green Economy initiative are
clearly two ideas whose time has come, as
evidenced by the Republic of Korea and Japan’s
stimulus package announcements alongside
those of other key economies and leaders
from China to the President-elect of the
United States,” he added.
Mr Steiner said the
announcements also echoed the call by the
UN Secretary-General in Poznan last month
where he outlined a Global Green New Deal
as the best chance for securing a sound
and solid climate agreement in Copenhagen
in late 2009.
The move by two of Asia’s
major economies comes on the heels of US
President-elect Barack Obama’s plans to
implement a US$150 billion clean energy
programme during his presidency in a bid
to create 5 million jobs.
In October, the UN Environment
Programme launched the Global Green New
Deal and Green Economy Initiative as both
an antidote to current economic woes and
as a springboard to a low carbon, low impact,
high job generating and better-managed global
economy.
+ More
Prince Albert II Visits
Antarctica to Assess the Effects of Global
Warming
Friday 9 January, 2009
– Billion Tree Campaign Patron and UNEP
Champion of the Earth Prince Albert II of
Monaco has begun a month-long expedition
to Antarctica to assess the impact of global
warming on the South Pole.
"This is one of
the most sensitive regions in the world,"
Prince Albert said. "Everything happening
at the South Pole, like the North Pole,
has repercussions everywhere on the planet."
The Prince will pay to offset the greenhouse
gas emissions from his own visit by investing
in renewable energies.
Since acceding to the
throne in 2005, the Prince has made environmental
awareness a key goal of his principality.
He has thrown his support behind a wide
range of green causes, including the UNEP
Billion Tree Campaign alongside Nobel laureate
Wangari Maathai. The Campaign is catalyzing
a massive tree-planting movement around
the globe, with the goal to plant 7 billion
trees – one per every person on the planet
– by the end of 2009. For this and other
efforts to safeguard the planet, Prince
Albert received UNEP's prestigious Champion
of the Earth Award in 2008.
The Prince's South Pole
itinerary includes visits to scientific
outposts and meetings with climate change
experts from 18 countries to get an overview
of the latest research. He will visit a
range of scientific stations including the
US research bases at Patriot Hill and Amundsen-Scott,
the French-Italian base Concordia, Russia's
Vostok and Novolazarevskaya, Australia's
Davis station, the Belgian base Princess
Elisabeth and Norway's Troll.
The trip's other objective
is to raise worldwide public awareness of
the effect of global warming and other environmental
change on the Poles.
Christian Nellemann,
senior officer for UNEP's GLOBIO Programme,
said: "The growing environmental efforts
of prominent state leaders, like that of
Prince Albert II, are very important in
raising the understanding in society and
among politicians, of the huge risks we
are facing with climate change."
UNEP's Polar Programme,
based at the Grid-Arendal research centre
in Norway, works on early warning and assessment
of the polar environments. The Programme
also focuses on communicating the key role
of the polar regions for the global climate.
