One percent for the planet (and for us)

unep-year-book-09I noted on October that the United Nations want a global green New Deal and their latest Year Book brings us more information on that as now we have an estimate of the money needed.

Dedicating one tiny single percent of the global GDP to combating water scarcity, climate change and biodiversity loss would enable us to avoid a lot of troubles in the near future.

This would represent the equivalent of a third of the global stimulus packages – worth no less than $2.5 trillion (2 trillion euros) – but would represent really sustainable investments.

As the UNEP notes:

One third of the around $2.5 trillion-worth of planned stimulus packages should be invested on ‘greening’ the world economy.

This would assist in powering the global economy out of recession and onto a Green, 21st century path a new report released today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) says.

The estimated $750 billion of green investment, equal to about one per cent of current global GDP, could trigger significant, multiple and potentially transformational returns.

Allied to innovative market mechanisms and fiscal policies, these include:

  • Stimulating clean tech innovation, stabilizing and boosting employment in decent jobs and protecting vulnerable groups
  • Cutting carbon dependency and greenhouse gas emissions, reducing degradation of multi-trillion dollar ecosystems and their goods and services and tackling water scarcity
  • Furthering the opportunity to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of ending extreme poverty by 2015

The G20, comprising of the 20 largest developed and developing economies, who next meet in London in April, is the first opportunity to begin shaping a Global Green New Deal.

Such a Deal can also set the stage for a successful outcome to the crucial UN climate change meeting later in the year in Copenhagen, Denmark.

These are among the findings of the Global Green New Deal report, written in consultation with experts from over 25 UN bodies and external organizations including the OECD, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

(…) Its findings, alongside those of the UNEP Year Book 2009, are being presented today to over 100 environment ministers attending UNEP’s Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum.

Among the highlighted topics are:

  • Combating waste of all kinds ;
  • Construction and buildings ;
  • Transport ;
  • Climate change ;
  • Ecosystems ;

To learn out more, please download the press release or the full report.

2 thoughts on “One percent for the planet (and for us)”

  1. We don’t really need to spend money to avoid destroying things. In fact, just spending less money could do it. Forests are cut down because we want paper for advertising we glance at once and then throw away. Water would not be scarce if we didn’t use perfectly clean water to flush away our shit and piss, and water crops in the middle of a 40 degree day, grow rice in Australian savannah, do in-situ leaching for uranium mining, and so on.

    Consume less, save money, and we reduce our impact.

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