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: There is need for an integrated response to the current economic and environmental crises, says a recently released report. It calls for greening of national economies, creating green jobs, and hiking public spending on R&D for energy-efficiency and clean energy.
Greening of national economies entails allotting a bigger share of funds for environment-friendly initiatives, elaborates the report, Toward a Transatlantic Green New Deal: Tackling the Climate and Economic Crises, prepared by the Worldwatch Institute, a US-based research organisation, for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, a Germany-based nonprofit.
In fact, some countries have already announced stimulus packages, which have green proposals in the form of public spending, incentives and tax breaks. For example, stimulus funding amounts to Euro 900 bn in Asia, Euro 780 bn in the Americas and Euro 490 bn in Europe. Out of it, green funding is estimated to account for Euro 200 bn in Asia, Euro 89 bn in the Americas, and Euro 42 bn in Europe. In South Korea, 80% of the stimulus spending is green in nature.
But it still falls short of what the proponents of the global green deal have been calling for. For example, the United Nations Environment Programme’s Green Economy Initiative has pitched for a global green deal worth $750 billion, which amounts to 1% of global GDP or 25% of the total economic stimulus spending in energy-efficient buildings; renewables; sustainable transport; natural infrastructure like freshwater and forests; and sustainable agriculture.
The Worldwatch Institute report adds that the amount of the green stimulus is not only inadequate, but even its green credentials are questionable. Since most of the programmes are not targeted at green initiatives, they promote carbon- intensive economy. For example, road building on a large scale degrades the environment and is avoidable.
This view has been expressed in other reports, too. “The economic recovery packages put forward by many countries amount in total to a large amount of money, some of which may have a beneficial impact on greening the global economy. But many packages are woefully small, few contain adequate detail for full assessment and some indeed are actually counterproductive if the aim is to move rapidly to a low carbon economy in the face of the climate crisis,” says Economic/climate recovery score cards: How climate friendly are the economic recovery packages? The report was prepared by development nonprofit Germanwatch and renewable energy consultancy Ecofys for global conservation organisation WWF and E3G, a...
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