Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
CONTENT
Introduction........................................... 3 The UN 2010 and 201 Human 1 Development Reports.
Getting better Human Development 1990 - 2010................................................ 4 Sustainability + Equity A Better Future for All................................................ 6 Its Just Not FAIR!!!..................................... 8 Finding the Positive Policy Solutions.... 10
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Thanks are due to the UN Human Development Report Office for permission to summarise their 2010 and 2011 Reports; to UNEPs Green Economy Unit for permission to summarise their excellent Towards a Green Economy Briefing Paper and Pavan Sukhdev, its author, for his concern to make his report accessible to young people. Finally, thanks to the European Commission for funding the Road to Rio+20 project of which these booklets are a central part, and for providing their excellent Communication and Road Map to a Resource Efficient Europe also summarised in this booklet.
Introduction
- THE IMPORTANCE OF RIO+20: The Green Growth Summit The UN Secretary General is calling Rio+20: The most important Summit meeting in the UNs History. Why? Because he, like many concerned economists, scientists and any of you who have read all these booklets, realise that the way we, and our planet, are heading is over a cliff. Rio+20 is the perfect opportunity to change direction away from the precipice towards the sunlit uplands of peace, prosperity and sustainability with Equity. Will it do so? probably not. Our governments failed in Copenhagen and there is every chance that they will fail again in Rio. Why? Because there is a big problem in the negotiation: the richer countries think the Rio+20 theme of a Green Economy is a great idea. The poorer countries think it distracts from the central social, environmental and development themes which were at the heart of Sustainable Development. Also, they feel that putting a price on natural resources makes the forests, the seas, the rivers just another commodity which is culturally offensive to them. After a year of negotiation, this gulf remains. There is another problem: the basic negotiating text (the Zero Draft) produced by UN staff for the Rio+20 Outcome Statement is hopelessly weak. This was intentional: the UN staff thought that, by being weak, they would make the governments more bold. But thats like a general going into battle telling his troops: I am going to lead this attack so hopelessly, you will feel sorry for me, and fight more boldly to make up for my lack of leadership! Doesnt work! Youth can make up for that lack of leadership by running their own, parallel My City+20 simulations of the Rio Summit, then following it up by doing a personal, household or Community Green Transition Plan. Or you could do a Day of Action & Learning about Rio+20. The last six pages of this booklet explain how to do these. Anything you come up with will feed into the Youth Statement that will be handed to every Head of State as they arrive for the Summit in Rio. In this booklet, we summarise the best learning weve found on Rio+20: the first part is drawn from the 2011 UN Human Development Report: Sustainability and Equity; the second is from the UN Environment Programmes policy brief: Towards a Green Economy excellent in spite of the Green Economy jargon. My position? I would like to re-brand Rio+20 as the Green Growth Summit. Every country, rich and poor, can get behind that, cant they? We all want growth and the jobs and prosperity that growth brings. But we want it to be green and sustainable and to be accompanied by equity fairness: human rights for all! Health for all! Education for all + an end to war. Demilitarisation Peace!
Human Development :
In 1990, the first Human Development Report (HDR) introduced a new approach to Development. It put people at the centre, saying Development is about enlarging peoples choices! giving them the political freedoms to be active agents of change. Human development also ensures that current achievements are not attained at the expense of future generations which is why it is the foundation of Sustainability.
It is getting better :
Because of the HDI, we know were not guessing. People are healthier, better educated, live longer and less likely to die of starvation or malnutrition than they were in 1990 even though there are nearly 2 billion more of us. The graph shows that, on average, countries have improved by 18% - only three have gone backwards. (See if you can spot which they are from the graph.) More people are able to select their leaders democratically, and influence public decisions and opinions. Technological development, especially in the field of communications, enables more people to be in touch with each other freely across the planet. Although the digital divide is deep, people, especially young people, in even the poorest countries are finding ways to bridge it.
So whats the trick? What are the factors that make things better?
Good governments help.. One need only compare the relative affluence of South Korea with its Northern neighbour to see how a government affects human development. Throughout the world, economic growth and human progress can be traced back to thoughtful government institutions and policies. The HDR points out that markets are very bad at guaranteeing provision of security (defence) health and education. Markets are also weak in promoting environmental sustainability. This is why the HDRs concentrate on promoting good policy decisions to both government and Civil Society. We need them, if we are to survive!
Inequality:
Though democracy has spread from around 30% of UN member states in 1970 to over 60% now, inequality has gotten worse. For every ONE country where income inequality has improved (chiefly in Latin America) TWO have got worse: most former Soviet states, and East Asian and Pacific countries have higher inequality than 20 years ago.
This cover explores the integral link between environmental sustainability and equity and shows that these are critical to extend human freedoms for people today and the generations to come. It symbolises how different policies can have different implications for sustainability and equity. Whenever available, we should prefer solutions that are good for the environment while also promoting equity and human development.
So why does the UN seek to grasp these two, seemingly impossible / seemingly contradictory, policy goals? Because the UN is centrally concerned with JUSTICE: it is inherently unjust to plunder resources today and leave none for the citizens of tomorrow. Equally, it is UN-just for some today to have abundant access to jobs, education and healthcare while others have none of these things. Amartya Sen puts it succinctly: It is as important to be concerned with Intra-Generational Justice as it is to be concerned about Inter-Generational Justice. The HDRs goal is to find the positive synergies between sustainability and equity as the Graphic on the front cover illustrates. It is not always possible to find synergies: indeed the imperative of farmers cutting down forests to feed their families and stay alive, is a direct challenge to sustainability. But there are synergies and it is the job of this generation, and this HDR, to find them. Because, without equity, sustainability will be a luxury for the rich and a punishment for the poor.
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People in very high HDI countries drive cars, use air-conditioning and electricity from fossil-fuel driven plants so, of course, cause more GHG emissions. The average UK citizen emits as much GHG in two months as a person in a low HDI country generates in a year or the average Qatari generates in 10 days. The growth is non-linear: the faster the HDI goes up, carbon emissions grow even faster: the richer the country, the higher the HDI and the greater the GHG emissions. Even more unfair, since1850, very high HDI countries have together generated 9 times more carbon emissions than low, medium and high countries combined. Thats why, in the Kyoto Protocol, Very High HDI countries were required to make the big reductions and why India and China fight so fiercely to keep this Equity component while countries like the USA insist that all countries be treated equally.
Most GHG emissions are carbon dioxide. But there are others methane and nitrous oxide, which are 300 times more potent. Few, outside the extreme right, doubt that climate change is the result of human activity our burning of fossil fuels, cutting down of forests, cement manufacture etc. Carbon intensive production and consumption is up 112% from 40 years ago. In low, medium and high HDI countries, its up by 248%, while in very high HDI countries, its down by 52%. So lower carbon emissions are possible if you can afford it. Low HDI countries cannot and they suffer most from its consequences, thus:
Climate Change:
i. Rising Sea levels: The 2011 HDR says, Sea-levels have risen by 50cm since 1870 and are likely to rise 31cm by 2100. Bad news for Small Island States like the Maldives and Tuvalu but all low HDI countries will suffer from sea-water intrusions into their drinking water. They do not have the resources, or often the technology, to deal with rising sea-levels that Western European Countries, like the Netherlands, have. The HDR calculates that 63 million people in East Asia and the Pacific will be affected by sea-level rise.
ii. Declining Rainfall: Climate change causes less rain especially in Africa. In Sub-Saharan African raiinfall is down 7% - with Low HDI countries down overall by 4%. High HDI countries experience much lower declines. iii. Natural Disasters: The number of storms, droughts and floods has increased from 132 a year in 1980 to 357 a year in 2007. Surprisingly, Low HDI countries have less to lose from such natural disasters than Medium HDI countries: a typical natural disaster in a Medium HDI country takes 11% more lives than a similar one in a Low HDI country. And overall, natural disasters are taking fewer lives now than they were 40 years ago. iv. Deforestation: Very High HDI countries have experienced forest growth recently but Low HDI countries have lost 11% of their forests. Latin America (the Amazon), the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa are worst affected. There are increasing instances of land grabs by High HDI countries of land in Low HDI countries to get timber and agricultural products. v. Soil erosion and Degradation: Desertification and soil erosion are affecting agricultural land everywhere and Low HDI countries are worse equipped to deal with it than High HDI countries. In the same countries, aquifers are being depleted which result in lower crop yields.
vi. Disappearing Fisheries: The current annual fish catch of 145m tonnes far exceeds the maximum annual sustainable yield of 80-100m tonnes, says the HDR. We are at or close to Peak Fish and already catches of some large fish have declined considerably since 1980. Again, Low HDI countries suffer most as the large, industrial fishing operations of the High HDI countries are responsible for 90% of the total catch even though 85% of fisherman live in Asia. Their average catch is 2.3 tonnes per fisherman compared with 23.9 tonnes per fisherman in Western Europe. Is that fair?
lower: there are 900 cars per 1000 people of driving age in the USA compared to 10 in India; 2 TV sets per household in the USA to 1 TV per 10 households in Liberia. Average water consumption in Very High HDI countries is 452 liters per day, compared to 67 litres per day in Low HDI countries.
Future: Without change, by 2050, Low HDI countries will experience less rain, rising sea-level, more deforestation, soil erosion, and marine eco-system deterioriation than High and Very High HDI countries.
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Glimmers of Hope: Education really helps as well-educated countries like Sweden demonstrate. 96% of Swedes are aware of Climate Change, compared to only 60% globally. [see: www.gallup.com/se/126848/worldview.aspx] Because they know, surveys show that Swedes are prepared to accept slower economic growth and higher taxes in return for better environment quality. The people of Costa Rica also support their governments initiatives to protect their forests and pay for eco-system services. Curitiba, Brazil, has the worlds highest rate of journeys by public transport (45%) and one of the lowest levels of urban air pollution in the world again through inspired leadership by the municipal government. So governments local and national can change things.
Energy for All: Today, 1.5 billion people have no access to electricity and 2.6 billion cook their meals on open fires. Off-grid micro-generation from hydro- and solarpower can deliver gains in better jobs, increased food security, more time spent studying, more leisure choices and more empowered communities. In India, CleanINs zero carbon village project has raised income, and lowered carbon emissions in 100 villages across Andrha Pradesh using solar cookers, bio-digesters and photo-voltaic power generation. Grameen Shakthi has done the same for 3 million people in Bangladesh. Renewables account for 20% of todays electricity supply a 100-fold increase since 2000. Gaining access to electricity is one of the first steps along the road to Equity: it should be taken NOW using sustainable, renewable Green Energy!
SOLBEN is a full-service Bio-fuels company that both builds modular bio-fuel production plants and offers consultancy to other bio-fuel producers. Started by 20-year old Daniel Gmez in Mexico the company turned over $1 million in 2010, and is set to turn over $3 million in 2011. It sources its fuels in nonfood products like algae and Jatropha.
Managing Population: Obviously, a lower global population is more sustainable making equity easier to deliver. The HDR points out that halving the 2010 Population Growth Rate would deliver about a quarter of the carbon emission reductions needed by 2050. Another study shows that averting 53 million unwanted pregnancies annually would cut 17% off the global emissions total. Access to contraception is part of it: Bangladeshs population growth rate dropped from 6.6 births per 1000 in 1970 to 2.4 in 2009 chiefly through providing access for women to family planning.
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Gender empowerment Educating and empowering girls and young women remains the best way to lower population growth: the HDR shows that girls who have never gone to school have 4.5 children; those with a few years of schooling have 3; those with a couple of years of secondary schooling have 1.9. But gender empowerment also delivers sustainability and equity in many other ways: studies show that countries with more female members of parliament set aside more protected land areas and forests, ratify more environmental treaties and reduce their carbon emissions faster than those with male-dominated parliaments.
Access to Clean, safe Water for All: There are many different ways to deliver clean water, sustainably in Low HDI countries. Cheap biosand filters are one way; tablets which consolidate impurities in a single, removable lump are another; solar distillers are yet another. The technology exists and it needs to be prioritised as, without water, humans and their animals and farms, die. The Sustainability / Equity balance needs to be observed at all levels: sometimes, paying for the water eco-system services of forests and mountain areas in order to sustain them is the best way to do this. The HDR points out that water from 18 national parks in Venezuela supplies fresh water to 19 million people and in several Arab states like Egypt and Yemen, water efficiencies are being driven by charging farmers market rates for water for their irrigation systems.
Sanitation: Sanitation is, clearly, key to good health and there are many remarkable programmes delivering to that 50% of the population of Low HDI countries who lack access to sanitation. One of the best is Community-led Total Sanitation which started in Bangladesh in 2000. (See: http://www. communityledtotalsanitation.org/) No hardware, no standard design just empowering communities to face their waste and dig the pits necessary to dispose of their waste in safe ways.
Cash Transfers: A good way to improve equity is simply to give the poor money. Surprisingly, its also quite cheap: Mexicos Opportunidades Cash Transfer programme benefits 20% of the population and costs only 0.5% of GDP. Brasils Bolsa Familia is a similar scheme, and Indias National Rural Employment Guarantee Act costs 0.5% of GDP and supports 45 million households with 100 days of guaranteed labour. The International Labour Organisation calculates that cash transfers amounting to just 2% of global GDP could provide education, health and basic food provision for all the worlds poor: surely an equitable social safety net worth considering?
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Promote Community Management In the Zambezi basin, researchers discovered that forests considered sacred by indigenous tribes were being cut down at half the rate of those that werent. Delegating management of Environmental Assets to community groups particularly women has paid huge dividends in terms of ensuring their sustainability: Community-conserved areas help ensure access to resources, sustain human development and maintain eco-system integrity (HDR 2011) Locally managed marine areas also sustain fisheries effectively: in Andavadoaka in Madagascar, local fisherman developed a sustainable octopus fishing industry which spread and involved 24 villages in successfully managing a marine area for their profit.
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Empowerment delivering sustainability and equity: Environmental degradation is driven by the dis-empowerment of local communities. Therefore empowering them is a key driver of sustainability and also of equity. And part of that empowerment is education and awareness-raising about the challenge of climate change and eco-system maintenance. Where there is a free press, and strong civil society organisations, democracy is proven to be eco-friendly. But self-interest also drives a thirst for cheap fossil fuels so in countries the USA and in the European Union they still deliver subsidies that are harmful to the environment and undermine equity.
The rights of Nature: For many years, the world has debated how to enshrine in law the rights of the natural world and the environment. There is a tablet proclaiming the Rights of Nature on the wall of the UN Environment Programmes Headquarters in Nairobi and many HDRs assert that A clean and safe environment is a Right not a privilege 31 African countries include environmental rights in their constitutions, and 120 countries include the provision of environmental norms amongst State obligations. In Chile, a court overturned a government licence because of its environmental impact. Hungary appointed an Ombudsman for Future Generations to ensure that no laws impact meeting future needs.
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Financing these Policy Solutions: The world economy turns over $63 Trillion a year. You would have thought we could find a few million of that to conserve our natural assets for future generations. You would be wrong! Official development assistance reaches only 1.6% of the figure needed for achieving low-carbon energy, and 11% of that needed to combat climate change. And yet the world continues to spend around $650 Billion on fossil fuel subsidies. Uzbekistan spends 10 times more on oil subsidies than it does on health. Iran spends 4 times more on it than it does on education. Worse, many rich nations pledge funds for environmental initiatives then fail to deliver on those pledges. What to do? The 2011 HDR returns to what looks like the only secure source for financing Sustainability and Equity: the Financial Transaction or Tobin Tax. Designed originally to damp-down risky speculation in the global currency casino, this tax could deliver $200 billion if operated by Europe alone, up to $650 billion a year if operated globally. Substantially more than the $129 billion generated by Overseas Aid Budgets. But who would you trust to spend it?? The UN?? The World Bank?? NGOs?? The 2011 HDR does not address that question!
Amory Lovins has been in the vanguard of new thinking about energy since his breakthrough book, Soft Energy Paths in the 1980s. He was in his 20s when he wrote it. Later, he introduced the Resource Efficiency revolution with his book, Factor Four. Now, with his book, Reinventing Fire (Rocky Mountain Institute: http://rmi.org/ReinventingFire), he shows how business and industry, without any UN or government agreement, can make the change away from fossil fuels to renewables and the Green Economy. Why? Because it is now profitable to do so. The book explains how the transportation industry can operate by 2050 without oil; how the private sector can profitably provide the electricity needed by cities and industry without oil. It looks only at the USA which is behind the curve in the move to renewables. Lovins shows, convincingly, how the US could lead the world in the drive to the Green Economy. His ideas are endorsed by former President Bill Clinton and the introduction is by the President of Shell Oil. The idea that private Industry, driven by the profit motive, could achieve what governments, in their search search for legallybinding Climate Change agreements, has failed to achieve is both intriguing and attractive. It concludes: We only get to choose once. Choose well.
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The Value of the Banking Metaphor A lot in household management comes down to money: we save a little every week, and try not to run up debts. Environmental management is the same we should save and not bankrupt ourselves by running up huge environmental debts. But we dont: everywhere you look - forests, water, fish, minerals - environmental savings accounts are sinking into the red. We are recklessly consuming resources that have been built up over millions of years, endangering future generations by our carelessness. Every gallon of petrol/gas you use comes from 100 tons of compressed, swamp/forest waste, distilled over 200 million years. As our fossil fuel saving account dips towards the red, we make the transition to renewable fuels an imperative. Sustainable Development vs. Green Economy We, in Peace Child, have been trying to educate young people about Sustainable Development for the last 20 years without great success. The phrase has simply NOT captured the public imagination. For a start, its a contradiction in terms: sustainable means continuous, and development means growth. You cant have continuous growth on a small, finite planet. So we feel that, on balance, 20 years on from the earth summit, we should drop the language of sustainable development and talk about a Green economy with equity at its heart. Thats a much more attractive sounding concept. A Green and Fair Economy one that seeks the well-being of all, rather than opulent wealth for the few and grinding poverty for the many and also one that takes care of the needs of future generations thats a concept we could get behind and educate about.
In his novel, Solar, Ian McEwan defines a green economy as: - like a thirsty man who in a forest who cuts down trees to drink the sap while ignoring a rushing stream at the edge of the forest. How can we be that stupid? The sap is oil - and the stream is sun. Thomas Edison, the inventor of electricity, predicted that the sun would be the best source of electricity. And he didnt see the diagram(right) showing that enough sun falls on a small area of the Sahara Desert to provide all the worlds energy needs!
Enough sun falls on the top square to meet the World demand for energy; the middle square represents Europes demand and the bottom one, that of the Middle East and Africa (based on 2005 figures. Source: Desertec Foundation).
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Farming: By 2050, our farms have to feed 9 billion people probably with more eroded land, higher temperatures and scarcer water. Current farming practice uses 70% of the worlds fresh water, causes 3-5 million cases of pesticide poisoning which kill 40,000 people a year. A Green Economy would shift both industrial and subsistence farms to more organic farming, with integrated pest control, efficient use of water, optimal tillage and plants that offer nutrition to the soil. An investment of $100+ billion dollars in green farming would increase yields 10% over current practice, save water and improve soil quality at the same time. It must be done and existing farm subsidies must be ended. Fisheries: Look at the chart: $20 billion dollar subsidies of industrial fishing have brought many of the worlds richest fishing grounds to the brink of extinction. A Green Economy would end those subsidies immediately, invest $100+ billion in restoring capacity and raise catches from 80 to 90 million tons a year from sustainable fishing grounds. Instead of declines and further collapses of fishing grounds, a green economy fishing sector would return 3 to 5 times the value of the investment required in it. Surely worthwhile! Energy: The energy sector is responsible for 70% of all greenhouse gas emissions and represents half the import costs several Low HDI countries. A green economy energy system would internalise energy generation for those countries reducing their costs, creating jobs, and reducing the dangers of climate change. Win-win-win! And renewable energy technologies are still in their infancy: the US government invests $3 billion a year in renewable energy research compared to $72 billion in military research. When serious research is invested in bio-fuels, solar voltaics and fusion technologies, the Green Energy Economy will produce more energy than the current fossil fuel one. That rushing stream!
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Waste: In a Green Economy, all waste is product for which uses can be found. With waste expected to rise 20% to over 13 billion tons a year by 2050 thats a huge product! Today, only 25% of the worlds waste is recycled or re-used: if all was, it could create a $410 billion industry. In Brazil, the recycling industry generates $2 billion, saves 10 million tonnes of greenhouse gas and employs 500,000 people but still $5bn goes to landfill. Currently, about 140 billion metric tonnes of farm residue is recycled, generating the equivalent of 50 billion tonnes of oil. In a green economy, by 2050, 100% of all biomass waste would be recycled including all food waste which would deliver millions of barrels of oil equivalent and trillions of litres of water. Zero waste is a huge business opportunity: (see: www.zerowaste.org). Water: Greening the water sector would require everybody to pay for what they use which would result in increased efficiencies in farming, industrial and municipal water use. An investment of $100+ billion a year in these efficiencies would reduce demand for water by 20% by 2050. Investments in water provision offer significant benefits to the worlds poorest people 884 billion of whom lack access to safe drinking water. 84% of the $8bn. investment in Indias Rural Employment Guarantee programme goes into water-related investments benefiting 59 million households. Sanitation: 2.6 billion people lack access to proper sanitation services causing massive health problems that result in child deaths and costs of up to 2-3% of GDP in several countries. A Green Economy would prioritise investment in sanitation services, reducing that 2.6 billion figure to 1.7 billion by 2015. Green Cities: 50% of the worlds people live in cities and consume 70% of the energy and generate 75% of the carbon emissions. Urban populations are increasing: Chinas is expected to rise from 656 million today to 905 million by 2030; Indias is expected to almost double to 590 million. So greening our cities is a top priority for the Green Economy and it can be done through improved planning, building vertical farms, improving buildings, public transport + water and sanitation infrastructure. The model Green City of Curitiba uses 30% less fuel than other Brazilian cities. Green buildings: buildings are the single biggest contributor to greenhouse gases: one third of the worlds energy ends up being used in buildings. Currently, that contribution is expected to almost double to 15.6 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030. UNEP has proved that the application of strict Green Economy Building Standards on all buildings can reduce these costs. Investments of up to a trillion dollars in building stock retrofitting etc. would generate large numbers of jobs and a third of energy-savings over current methods. Transportation: Transport accounts for over half the worlds consumption of liquid fossil fuels and almost a quarter of our carbon emissions. A green economy transport system plans for people to live near where they work, enhance public transportation, reduce congestion by imposing congestion charges, improving clean transport technology by building lighter vehicles, (like RMIs Hyper-car) and making mass transit much more efficient. Tax and subsidy reform would deliver greener transport within a decade.
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2. Set New Performance Standards: Make high standards compulsory like All cars must achieve 100mpg! can achieve incredible and immediate transformation, and many are fairly easy to police.
3. Sustainable Public Procurement: Governments are all countries biggest individual consumers, so when they only buy sustainably produced, resource efficient products, the impact on carbon emissions is immediate and great. In Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany and the UK, sustainable procurement reduced the national carbon footprint by 20%.
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Eliminate Harmful Subsidies: Stop the Subsidies! . Fossil Fuel: Governments subsidised fossil fuel consumption at an estimated $557 billion dollars in 2008 with a further $100 billion being given in fossil fuel production subsidies. Fossil Fuel production needs to be taxed heavily now to conserve it for the vital role it has to play in the building of the green economy. . Agriculture: Rich countries agriculture are heavily subsidised to the tune of $300 billion a year. This has the effect of shutting out Low HDI producers from profitable markets, Where does this figure come from? Who gives the money? I want to check this figure with people here: I think its low its things like the EUs common agricultural policy (CAP) the US subsidies to cotton and coffee farmers which shut out developing country producers. It is paid by rich country governments to farmers. . Fish: $27 billion a year for fisheries which has depleted fish stocks by $50 billion! (what is the time period?) As I say each year: annually how can I make it clearer?? . Subsidies & Green Taxes: Making it cheaper to buy sustainably produced goods and more expensive to buy goods produced un-sustainably is the quickest and most effective way to get the public to change their consumption habits. When Europe made taxes on leaded petrol higher than those on unleaded, the public changed to buying unleaded petrol overnight. Providing price support for green products and taxing ungreen products heavily transforms purchasing decisions and incentivises the growth of new green industries. Singapore, Germany and Norway are leaders in green pricing. The result? - hundreds of new companies producing green products.
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5. Green Investment Incentives: There are a million creative ways that governments can encourage green investments from reducing property taxes on home-owners who install solar water heaters, to charging more for parking gas-guzzling SUVs, to supporting Feed-in Tariffs with price incentives for individual producers. This is why governments must lead on any National Green Economy Transition Plan (see pages 30-31) 6. Make Subsidies Time-Bound: Governments must make such subsidies predictable over a decent time period (3-5 years) and then phase them out gradually. Suddenly dropping subsidies the way some governments have done over the last few years make long-term green investments impossible for the private sector.
7. Cash Transfers to eliminate poverty: Remember: a Green Economy is one that improves social equity So include in your Green Economy Transition Plan a welfare safety net that helps eradicate poverty. Weve seen that Cash Transfers help the poorest members of society to consume enough to sustain themselves and their families. Providing such funds to female heads of household and targeting food, healthcare and education can transform the lives of poor people. 8. Manage Population Growth: Many years of evidence shows that universal provision of reproductive health (condoms, contraceptive pills, professional mid-wives etc.) + universal primary education for all girls would go most of the way to managing population growth. 9. Tradable Permits: The Kyoto Protocol set up systems for trading carbon permits. By 2009, 8.7 billion tonnes of carbon was traded with a value of $144 billion. Paying for carbon pollution is a first step to controlling it: the ultimate step would be to set personal carbon footprints for every member of the human family meaning that, if rich people in the North want to travel and consume more, they have to buy permits from those in the South. 10. Paying for Eco-System Services: Over the years, the UN has developed several schemes to get people and business to understand the value of, and pay for, the natural resources they plunder from Mother Earth. We noted TEEB (on Page 16 ). Theres Kyotos Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) offsetting dirty investments with investments in clean technologies overseas. There is now the REDD scheme (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) requiring all governments and private business to pay the full cost of the forest products they extract, including the value of the forests sequestration of CO2 emissions. Full cost accounting in the mining, water and fishing industries is also on the horizon and will contribute greatly both to conservation and international equity. 1 1. Specific Workforce Training for a Just Transition: In Germany, the Green Economy now employs more people than the German auto industry and there is a shortage of skilled green workers. UNEP reports that almost all renewable energy sectors are experiencing skill shortages: governments must encourage business schools and technical colleges to green up their curricula and produce the Green Economy experts that a Green Economy needs.
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12. Technology Transfer: One of our Rio+20 Youth Prepcoms proposed a new Wikiwebsite offering free transfer of green technologies. Rationale? it is in the interests of all of us to end pollution and become sustainable as a global family: the polluting technologies of any one of us pollutes all of us eventually. So royalty-free sharing of green technologies North-South and South-South are a vital step to a global Green Economy. 13. Multi-lateral Environmental Agreements & International Trade Laws: (MEAs) If one country allows its companies to plunder forests at will and another levies big taxes on timber extraction, timber products from the first will be much cheaper. And that, self-evidently, is not fair. So the world needs international environment agreements and trade laws to create what is called a level playing field so that all companies and countries can compete equitably for markets. The world is very far from achieving this: the Doha Trade talks are stalled and, though there are over 500 MEAs, few are enforced and some are mutually contradictory. This is a good reason for setting up some kind of World Environment Organisation, or World Environment Security Council. Such a body should be set up by the Rio+20 Summit. 14. International Enforcement Mechanisms: How do you persuade governments to pass laws that would punish them appropriately if they broke them? Very difficult: but we now have an International Criminal Court and though its machinations are glacially slow, it has demonstrated to Balkan dictators, global thugs and corrupt mono-maniacs that they are not above the law. Three promising initiatives are being promoted by Civil Society: 1) The idea of an International Court for the Environment (ICE); 2) Making Ecocide a crime against humanity like genocide; 3) Appointing an International Ombudsperson for Future Generations. Any of these initiatives would force governments to consider the second part of their definition of Sustainable Development more seriously: without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. But what are the chances of any government passing a law it knows it is likely to break, allowing itself to be prosecuted and then hauling itself off to jail as punishment? Not high but worth pushing for anyway!
15. Education for living in the Green Economy: Every Youth Prepcom we held raised the question: Why dont we know about these problems? Answer: because they are not front and centre of any schools curriculum. It is almost as though there is a government level conspiracy to keep it a secret that oil is running out and no one really knows what to do about it. Fine if youre 60 now and will be dead long before 2050 when this really becomes a problem. Not good if you are 20 now and looking forward to waking up in 2050 to a peaceful, warm or air-conditioned retirement in 2050 and finding that there is no fuel to power those comforts. Every youth we spoke to called on their governments to educate them about the challenges of sustainability, equity and the green economy from the day they enter primary school to the day they graduate college. This planetary literacy should be at the heart of the curriculum starting with simple lessons in primary school, rising to in-depth exploration of the challenge in different disciplines at undergraduate and graduate levels.
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16. Fighting Corruption: Absent from all the UN briefings, but very present in all our youth prepcoms, is the idea that a sustainable, equitable society is a corruptionfree society. In many cases, youth offer themselves as corruption vigilantes seeking out, naming and shaming corrupt practices as they find them amongst their elders. Not a bad idea: every development professional knows that corruption the 2nd biggest obstacle to successful sustainable development after all-out war.
1 7. De-militarisation & de-nuclearisation: Obviously, the first priority of government is to protect its peoples from external threats but very few countries are under direct threat of external attack at this moment. Costa Rica has prospered without an army since the 1950s. To provide welfare to the worlds poorest, defense budgets must be cut: currently, they dwarf the health, welfare and education budgets of many countries. All youth agree: a sustainable world is one where peoples and nations get along without the threat of military action.
18. New Indicators to measure progress towards Green, Sustainable Societies: Many now agree that mere money measures gross national or gross domestic product(GNP / GDP) are not sufficient to measure progress to sustainability. Like the Human Development Index, GDP must be married to indicators that cover all the steps above education, green taxes & subsidies, procurement decisions etc. So governments, or the UN, must create a comprehensive measure to assess where each nation, and community, sits on the Global Sustainability League Table.
19. Financing the Green Economy - Where do you get the MONEY? The cost of building the Green Economy will be the biggest single investment made by the generation passing through our schools today. The World Bank estimates costs of between $40 and $50 Trillion dollars over the next 30 years. The UN Environmental Programme calls for 2% of global GDP per year: that is $1.26 trillion x 30 = $37.8 trillion. A whole lot of money. But we have $178 trillion in sovereign wealth, and pension, funds: so if, as Amory Lovins shows in Reinventing Fire, the Green Economy can be proved to be profitable, the private sector can and will provide the investment. But the other 19 steps need to be taken first to ensure that the Green Economy is both profitable and publicly understood for the priority it is.
20. Rio+20 Decisions: The single biggest step towards a Green Economy will be taken in the document governments sign or fail to sign on June 22nd 2012 in Rio de Janeiro. What would we like to see in it? Number ONE a commitment to prepare National Green Economy Transition Plans and lodge them with the UN Secretariat by say December 2014. Such plans must include a lot of the steps mentioned above and also have milestones dates by which each step will be taken. Number TWO some commitment to an international enforcement mechanism: an idea of what steps the international community will take to punish or outlaw governments that intentionally continue to plunder the natural environment to the detriment of the whole world.
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2050
The Vision: By Make Europe and the world resource efficient. This will deliver: . An economy that is competitive, inclusive and that provides a high standard of living with much lower environmental impacts. . Resources from raw materials to energy, water, air, soil & land that are all sustainably managed. . Climate change milestones that have been reached and surpassed if possible. . Biodiversity and ecosystem services that have been protected, valued and restored.
2050
By December 2013 : Set measures for the vision: the Commission seeks to agree on ways of measuring the delivery of this vision. It proposes a lead Resource Productivity Indicator to measure improved economic performance against the natural resources consumed to achieve it. Goal: the goal is to de-couple economic growth and wellbeing from resource use. In other words, growth in the future must come from increases in efficiency. Recent studies suggest that, in Germany, resource-efficiency gains in manufacturing could generate cost savings of up to 30% and create up to 1 million jobs for the country. In the UK, 23 billion in savings could come from low or no-cost resource efficiency measures in business. UNEP has proved that de-coupling can work because Denmark has doubled its GDP in the last 15 years without increasing its carbon emissions.
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Sustainable Consumption: By 2020 , the right incentives and price signals must be in place to encourage consumers, through advertising, to buy only sustainable products and services. Waste : By 2020 , waste is managed as a resource and per capita waste is in absolute decline. Landfilling is virtually eliminated and recycling / re-use of waste are economically attractive options for public and private actors through the development of functional markets for secondary raw materials.
2020
Research & Development : By 2020 , the Commission plans that scientific breakthroughs and sustained innovation will have dramatically improved how we understand, manage, reduce, reuse, recycle, substitute and safeguard and value resources. It will target research through Innovation Partnerships, Joint Technology and Programming Initiatives and focussed public research funding. Harmful Subsidies: By 2020 , the EU plans to phase out current subsidies that negatively impact the environment estimated globally, to be at $1 trillion a year, while taking care of the impact that this removal may have on people in need. Removing these subsidies will improve competitiveness, encourage businesses to invest in green technologies and deliver economic, social and environmental benefits. Natural Capital: By 2014 , EU member states will map the condition of their Ecosystems and the services they provide. By 2020, natural capital and ecosystem services will be properly valued and accounted for by public authorities and businesses and the loss of biodiversity halted. Water: By resources.
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Air Quality: By 2020 , to set and meet air quality standards that eliminate costs to ecosystems and agriculture ,damage from air pollution causing acidification, eutrophication and ozone damage to vegetation. If unchecked, the annual economic cost of this by 200 is estimated at 537 billion.
Land take: Every ten years, we in Europe take land equal to the land area of the island of
Cyprus and put buildings, roads etc. on it. By 2050 , the Road Map requires no net land take along with reduced soil erosion, all contaminated soils / sites restored and agricultural soils enriched. Marine Resources: By 2015 , fishing is within maximum sustainable yields through the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy and the phasing out of all fisheries subsidies; and by 2020 , good environmental status of all EU marine waters is achieved.
2020
Food: By 2020 , incentives to healthier and more sustainable food production and consumption will be widespread and will have driven a 20% reduction in the food chain's resource inputs. Disposal of edible food waste should have been halved in the EU. By 2020 , healthier eating and more sustainable food production will drive a 20% reduction in the food resources consumed and the tonnage of edible food thrown away should have been halved. (Currently, we throw away 90 million tonnes of edible food every year.) Food and drink consumption in the EU causes 17% of our greenhouse gas emissions and 28% of our resource use including the majority of our high-quality water. Buildings: By 2020 , all new buildings will be nearly zero-energy and highly material efficient; policies for renovating the existing building stock will be in place so that it is costefficiently refurbished at a rate of 2% per year. (Buildings currently use more than 50% of all extracted materials, 30% of our water, 42% of our energy causing 35% of our greenhouse gas emissions). Transport: Starting in 2012 , there should be an average 1% yearly reduction in Greenhouse Gas emissions from the Transport sector. The Commissions Transport White Paper aims to create a modern, efficient, safe public transport infrastructure within Europe that will deliver this. Stakeholder Mobilisation: By 2020 , stakeholders at all levels are required to implement policies that relate to resource efficiency. This involves policy, financing, investment, research and innovation. Ambitious targets with robust and timely indicators to guide public and private decision-makers as well as investors in the transformation of the economy towards greater resource efficiency will have been implemented. The rapid increase in investments in renewable energy technologies proves that investor mindsets can be changed through careful incentives and tax breaks. International Mobilisation: By 2020 , resource efficiency must be a shared objective of the international community. That is why the Commission is committed to a successful outcome of the Rio+20 Summit and believes the Summit can deliver concrete progress towards the green economy and the more efficient use of natural resources.
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2013
In its conclusion, the Commission concedes that the Road Map is not the ultimate response to all resource efficiency challenges: indeed, if you have read this booklet carefully, you will spot several that it has left out. But it is a good first step towards a coherent action framework that cuts across different policy areas, providing a stable perspective on the pre-requisites for Green economy transition.
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Environmental Conservation: In the last 25 years, the world economy has grown from $15 trillion to $63 trillion a year through destroying, or using unsustainably, 60% of the planets ecosystems. Reversing that trend is the only way our human species will survive beyond the end of this century. Business leaders must become conservationists: future growth depends on it.
Job Creation: UNEP calculates that, globally, the 2% of GDP investment would increase the number of jobs in agriculture by 4%, forestry by 20% and in transportation by 10%. Retrofitting homes would create 2 to 3 million jobs in Europe and North America and Eco-Tourism, which is growing six times faster than the rest of the tourist industry, will create millions of jobs worldwide.
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The University of Massachusetts reports that spending $1 million on clean energy investments produces 16.7 jobs compared to 5.3 jobs for the same amount spent on fossil fuel industries. Globally, the UK Green Party calculates that, for every $100m invested in nuclear or fossil fuel industries, you create +/- 1,700 jobs: for every $100m invested in Green Economy industries, you create +/5,000 jobs almost three times as many. Again in an era of massive unemployment, why would any one NOT want a Green Economy.
Poverty Eradication: As the UNEP report puts it: A key feature of a Green Economy is that it seeks to provide a variety of poverty alleviation measures without eroding a countrys natural assets on which the livelihoods of many poor rural communities depend. Greening their small farm sector will make more food available to them, reduce their poverty, lower their GHGs, and give them access to expanding international markets for green products. More programmes like Indias Rural Employment Guarantee scheme which invests heavily in sustainable fresh water provision - would help not just halve the number of people living in extreme poverty as promised by the MDGs but eliminate completely by 2050. That must be the major goal of the post-2015 Development Agenda.
Equity: Remember the UNEP definition of a Green Economy as one that improves human well-being and social equity Well, it can and that is the best reason for moving quickly to it now. Todays economy encourages greed, corruption and a widening gap between the richest and poorest members of the human family. By re-building the economy from the ground up to be sustainable and equitable, we can go a long way to squeezing out the inequities which see bankers rewarded with million dollar pay-checks as their banks fail and workers impoverished as their jobs disappear. 2011 saw Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring demonstrations spread across the world: a Green Economy is the solution that will address their complaints. For it will be democratic, fair, sustainable and a far, far happier place to live than the current unsustainable, inequitable, unjust, corrupt and polluted place we live today.
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England
India
Slovenia
Turkey
Scotland
Kenya
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PLANNING:
Your Day(s) of Action: If you have several days to work on it why not run a Satellite+20 Event which allows your students to come up with their own input to the UN process. (See Next Page). Or, if you can carve out a whole day to learn about the Importance of Rio+20, Here is a suggestion for how you might fill the day. If you only have a morning or one lesson or assembly choose one of these activities which best suits your students.
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In this version of My City+20, your starting point for any negotiation is the UNs Zero Draft Document at: http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/index.php?menu=115. As new drafts are agreed by governments, they will become available on this site. Because the Rio+20 process is a live negotiation, and because youth is a Major Group, your My City+20 (a concept endorsed at the highest level by UNESCO and soon, we hope, other UN agencies) have a chance a good chance of influencing the final outcome text. See: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/rioplus20/ - to check out UNESCOs radical plans for success at Rio+20. You should add a powerful Youth Lobby - an Occupy Rio+20 group to strengthen what YOUTH feel should be the outcome at Rio. Check out: http://mycityplus20.blogspot.com and look at the results of the Global Series of Youth Rio+20 Prepcoms hosted by PCI: http://www.roadtorioplus20.org/ youth-papers. Also look at the individual submissions by youth groups on the UN Website & Rio+20 Blogs: learn as much as you can about the issues then slam the UN and the governments with your brilliant ideas for how to solve the problems that Rio+20 is addressing.
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If you are very courageous, you can forget about the global issues and do a Rio+20 / Green Economy Transition summit just about your city: instead of getting country representatives, get youth, business, sport, local government, women, the elderly representatives of EVERY sector of your community, and model a summit about how you are all going to live sustainably together in the post-carbon future.
So youve got your participants; youve done all the research; youve got individuals representing the UN Member States and the 9 Major Groups. What are the next steps?
governments could should! agree at Rio+20? Write it down. Make it the most passionate, aspirational document you can! Flesh it out with SMART Targets: a Schedule of Actions that must be taken by a certain date. And get every one to agree it by consensus if possible. If not, by a vote.
STEP ONE : Agree your Youth Position: what is the best possible outcome that
STEP TWO : Review the UN Draft Outcome Document + Government & Other Major
Group Positions: Hopefully, your Youth Position Paper corresponds to some of the content of these. (If it doesnt skip this step and go on to the next!) You can then do TWO things : 1. Go through the UN Draft Outcome, inserting your ideas at appropriate points in the text; 2. Go through your revised UN Draft Outcome, supporting your ideas with quotes from different Country or Major Group Submissions that support your Youth Position. Clear? this is how UN negotiations are done: you have the base text, produced by the UN officers then governments and other official bodies introduce amendments. If a majority of governments and official bodies agree the amendment, the revised text is adopted ie. agreed!
STEP THREE : TAKE ACTION! Look through the Schedule of Actions see which ones
you can do at little or no cost. For example, everyone should prepare their own Personal Green Economy Transition Plan. Working with Transition Towns (see: http://www.transitionnetwork. org) anyone can prepare their own Local Green Economy Transition Plan. You can even have a shot at preparing a National Green Economy Transition Plan, or a National Green Economy/ Sustainability School Curriculum Plan (see next Page). These are things that youth groups can prepare in draft form, and then pressurise governments to comment and deliver upon.
STEP FOUR : MEDIA Mobilisation! The Main Purpose of hosting a Satellite+20 is to draw the publics attention to the fact that Rio+20 is happening and that it is INCREDIBLY important to young people. So plan a media campaign. You can hold a simple Press Conference but it would be smart to do something a little more eye-catching: the media are very turned on by the whole Occupy movement so have a demonstration: Occupy your school or college or Town Hall. Do a special School / College / Town Hall Presentation with the Principal / Vice Chancellor / Mayor there. Whatever you do, you will have to write a Press Release so do take the time to learn how to do a good one. (Check: http://www.publicityinsider.com/release.asp) STEP FIVE : UPLOAD everything on to the Website! We mean EVERYTHING! your
Youth Position Paper, your amended UN Draft Text ; stories and photographs of your Actions ; your Press Release and any press comment you managed to secure about your action. Upload it as you go along on http://mycityplus20.blogspot.com/.
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1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Zero-carbon Energy Infrastructure. Disciplines that reward sustainable, and punish unsustainable, behaviour. Equity. Education and Training on Sustainability, Equity and the Green Economy. Green Growth.
There are many other components you will want to add: you should make each Transition Plan as comprehensive as possible. Government bureaucrats are bound to come up with a document several volumes long. Thats their job! Yours is to begin to understand what a Green Economy will look like and how to start to build it starting with you!
ONE -
Do the math: how much energy do you actually use in a day, a week, a month, a year? How you are going to generate that energy without fossil fuel? Personal: Think bicycles, walking, fewer overseas holidays, using public transport Household: As above + think about a more eco-friendly family car, retrofitting the house with more insulation, solar water heating, ground source heat pumps, solar PV, wind turbines and feed-in tariffs etc. And think about what you eat, reducing meat intake etc. Community: Think community procurement ground source heat pumps for public buildings, electric municipal vehicles; wind driven public lighting etc. National: This is a huge deal: Sweden, Iceland and one or two other places are thinking about zero carbon national energy infrastructures driven by bio-fuels, wave and wind energy, ground source heat pumps etc. Again start with the math.
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TWO -
At a National level, this is Taxes and Subsidies that reward sustainable consumption and production and punishes UN-sustainable consumption and production. But how do you achieve that at the other levels? Personal: Set disciplines for yourself related to your spending. Budget everything! Household: Again, discipline: if you want a foreign holiday, sell the car. Want to have a more powerful car, become a vegetarian. Budget and use the Carbon footprint calculator. Community: Local taxes can drive sustainable consumption, just as national ones can. Spend an afternoon at your local tax office and see where you can place the disciplines. National: This will require a massive amount of research but figures should be publicly available. Check out the Danish Green Growth Plan which is chiefly about Food, Agriculture and FisheriesFood, Agriculture and Fisheriesfood, fish and farming: http://fvm.dk/green_ growth.aspx?ID=44067. Read about Germanys Green Growth Plans: http://e360.yale.edu/ feature/germanys_unlikely_champion_of_a_radical_green_energy_path/2401/. Finally, read about how the Private Sector is planning to go green: http://www.wbcsd.org/vision2050. aspx
THREE - Equity:
You must include a Poverty Eradication Plan that spells out how the profits of a Green Economy will be used to raise the poorest sectors of society into relative prosperity and comfort with more choices; Personal: Not much to do at this level: just dont beat yourself up too much; Household: Practice democracy in the household and make sure that every one is involved, is listened to, and has their needs, as far as possible, met. Community: Focus on the most vulnerable members of the community the elderly, the disabled, the sick, the unemployed, the very young: make sure their needs are met first by scaling back luxury items like theatres, sports facilities, municipal salary scales etc. National: As for the community only on a national level: protect against scroungers but build a welfare safety net that ensures every member of society has enough to eat and a roof over their heads + health and education.
Nothings going to happen until people KNOW that theres a problem and the solutions to that problem. Personal: Create a reading list for yourself and task yourself to read about the issues at least one hour a week. Household: Take the time to educate your family about the issues: pull up some of these videos on Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI31a2L1Olw or www.rmi.org Sit them down and educate them about the solutions: how there are big wins socially, environmentally and economically from moving to Green Economy Living. Community: Municipal councils can do much to inform their citizens by supporting the setting up of a Transition Network in their town or area but distributing leaflets, holding Town Hall meetings, public education programmes etc. National: Any national Green Transition Plan has to include an education plan that ensures every child, from the day they start primary school to their college graduation, has education about sustainable living at the heart of their schooling. That requires National legislation. Australia has done it, see: http://www.environment.gov.au/education/publications/pubs/ curriculum-framework.pdf The International Schools Network has a useful and interesting approach: http://www.isaschools.org/ Higher Education has made considerable progress, see: http://www.secondnature.org/ or http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200909/coolschools/
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FIVE -
Green Growth:
As we have seen, a green economy can grow faster than a business-as-usual brown economy. That is an imperative of any Green Economy Transition Plan for, if a Green Economy cannot grow incomes, its not going to happen. Check: www.greengrowth.org/ and www.oecd.org/document/10/0,3746,en_2649_37465_44076170_1_1_1_37465,00.html Personal: Figure out how you can grow your income without increasing your carbon footprint. Maybe through working from home and tele-commuting? Household: Again, think about enhancing your creature comforts in eco-friendly ways: a bicycle holiday, or investing in solar, or growing your own vegetables etc. Community: Green Economies will increasingly attract inward investments so figure out how your community can attract skilled green economy workers and green companies that can mark your community out as the green equivalent of Silicon Valley a centre of expertise in the next big focus of economic growth and prosperity. National: No question, countries pursuing green growth will, like communities, have a competitive edge as the century progresses. Figure out a plan for how to do this.
Plan for a zero-carbon Energy Infrastructure: each country must do the math and figure out how they are going to keep their lights on, and the wheels of industry and commerce turning without a drop of fossil fuel;
ONE:
TWO: Plan for a Tax / Subsidy regime that encourages sustainable THREE:
National Education / Training Curriculum that places at its heart learning about the challenge of sustaining a global family of +/- 10 billion people to live in comfort and security within the means of a small, fragile planet. Green Economy will be used to raise the poorest sectors of society into relative prosperity and comfort with more choices and opportunities for all;
FOUR: A Poverty Eradication Plan that spells out how the profits of a
FIVE: A Just Transition: a plan for minimizing the social upheaval of closing
down unsustainable industries and activities and opening up sustainable industries and activities so that the workers and families are not left destitute. This will involve massive training and information schemes... The list could go on and on: we would like to see youth at the heart of all national plans with support for youth-led SME start-ups and a focus on green jobs for youth. And there should be provision of social care for the elderly, the sick, the disabled, and the unemployed. And, as we have argued since the original Rio Earth Summit a sustainable society should be a peaceful, demilitarised society with shared armed forces, open borders and community policing. But those are additions that National Planners can make or not as they wish: all plans should address the key points outlined above which could be 5 or 10 or however many we think we can agree upon.
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