World Environment Day - Let us talk about a Green Economy

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Today it is the World Environment Day! The United Nations Environment Programme this year proposes discussions on the Green Economy: http://j.mp/KcVtiD A Green Economy is one whose growth is driven by investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Do you think that developed and developing countries will meet the challenge of shifting towards a Green Economy, particulalry concerning water resource efficiency? Is there a clear political will and commitment? And are there examples or best practices that you could share?

5 Answers

  1. When you look what takes part of environmental degradation one can be the urban migration which cause the population growth and this will result not only in causing pollution but also in poor land use and degradation including deforestation and this will cause a water shortage and the begin of ground water abstraction and as the ground water is over abstracted, it will result in decreasing of water lever and later the salinisation. One talked about political will to change this situation, I will emphasize on this, because the political stability is one of the keys to set and implement the good land use planning.By including the public participation and increasing the organisational and financial autonomy and reduce levels in decision making process.

  2. Perhaps we should be starting from the other end of the problem and asking the question: "Where do economic institutions come from?" From my perspective, economies self-organize from learned ways of being in the world. This involves a subconscious meaning system that Lev Vygotsky described as "like language".

  3. Thanks for the interesting comments! I came across a new IFPRI publication that examies the link between a shift towards a green economy and the need to ensure nutrition security http://j.mp/LIddcA. When water, land and energy are getting scarcer, the production and access to adequate, nutritious food ismore and mroe difficult. Therefore IFPRI tries to answer these questions: What are the implications of a green economy for the poor and hungry? How can the poor benefit from and thrive under a green economy? Let me know what you think about it!

  4. Developing a green economy natural resources should keep under prime consideration to take advance step against it's highly use. Alternative resources should be develop.

  5. Shifting to greener economy to meet the water resouces efficiency requires a greater commitment and high level of political will. The challenging issues remains lack of commitment and political will.

    1 Comment

    1. Dear Paschal, thanks for your comment! Maybe you and the other Community Cafe members would be interested in a very recent - and very provocative - publication by the World Bank: http://j.mp/KGlWLa This working paper tries to assess if green policies are more welfare-enhancing than less environmental friendly policies... and the conclusion might be quite surprising! Is green growth the right way to go? Is it effective? What do you think? Greetings, claudia