UNEP Head Applauds Green
Investment Declaration Signalling Fresh
and Fundamental Trend Towards Sustainable
21st Century
Geneva 26 June, 2009
- Achim Steiner, the head of the UN Environment
Programme (UNEP), today welcomed the 'Green
Growth' Declaration by the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) saying it underlined the way environment
was rapidly being brought into the centre
of economic discourse and policy-making.
Ministers from 40 countries
said: "Well targeted policy instruments
can be used to encourage green investment
in order to simultaneously contribute to
economic recovery in the short-term and
help to build the environmentally-friendly
infrastructure required in the long term—the
crisis should not be used as an excuse to
postpone crucial decisions for the future
of the planet".
The Ministers, representing
the 30 OECD member countries along with
five who are candidates for membership plus
Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South
Africa, called on the OECD to work with
a wide-range of partners including international
organizations to develop a Green Growth
Strategy "to achieve economic recovery
and environmentally and socially sustainable
economic growth".
They also underlined
their determination to realize an "ambitious,
effective, efficient, comprehensive and
fair international post-2012 climate agreement"
at the UN climate convention meeting in
Copenhagen, December as a key building block.
In a wide-ranging Declaration,
the ministers also called for greater cooperation
over low carbon, clean-tech including renewable
energies and green information and communications
technologies to assist in realizing a sustainable
21st century.
Mr Steiner, who addressed
the ministerial meeting on Thursday, said
UNEP stood ready to work with the OECD in
shaping and delivering the Green Growth
Strategy over the next 12 months underlining
the way it dovetails with UNEP's Global
Green New Deal/Green Economy initiative.
"It is encouraging
to see so many countries, representing 80
per cent of the global economy, putting
their collective political will behind the
transformational opportunities of embracing
Green Growth within a Green Economy,"
said the UN Under-Secretary General and
UNEP Executive Director.
"Their statement
also underlines their determination to unleash
the market and empower the private sector
via effective policy mixes, such as fiscal
instruments, incentives and creative regulations
in order to realize low carbon, resource
efficient, development" said Mr Steiner.
"We are talking
about a paradigm shift in policy,"
said Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo,
who chaired the meeting. "Technological
development and actions to protect the environment
and combat climate change can also be harnessed
in favour of economic growth."
OECD Secretary-General
Angel Gurría said: "Looking
beyond the crisis, OECD countries and countries
that we hope will shortly swell our numbers
have made a solemn pledge to promote environmentally
friendly green growth policies in favour
of sustainable economic growth based on
low carbon energy use," he told a closing
news conference.
"We have recognized
the importance of well-targeted policy instruments
encouraging green investment to contribute
to both short-term economic recovery and
long-term green infrastructure. This is
a significant signal and staging post on
the road to what we hope will be an ambitious
agreement on climate change in Copenhagen
at the end of the year," said Mr Gurría
The OECD Ministerial
Declaration Green Growth came as more than
20 UN agencies meeting in New York issued
a statement mirroring the one unveiled in
Paris
"Investing stimulus
funds in such sectors as energy efficient
technologies, renewable energy, public transport,
sustainable agriculture, environmentally
friendly tourism, and the sustainable management
of natural resources including ecosystems
and biodiversity, reflects the conviction
that a green economy can create dynamic
new industries, quality jobs, and income
growth while mitigating and adapting to
climate change and arresting biodiversity
decline," said the UN agencies and
multilateral environmental agreements.
These, it said, "can
potentially contribute to economic recovery,
decent job creation, and reduced threats
of food, water, energy, ecosystem and climate
crises, which have disproportionate impacts
on the poor."
Notes to Editors:
The OECD Declaration on Green Growth http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2009doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT00004886/$FILE/JT03267277.PDF
The Green Economy Interagency
Statement of the UN System http://www.unep.org/pdf/pressreleases/Green_Economy_Joint_Statement.pdf
UNEP's Global Green New Deal/Green Economy
initiative http://www.unep.org/greeneconomy/
