The G20's core objective is to promote strong, sustainable and balanced economic growth, but this requires greening the global economy. Over the coming 15 years, the world will need to invest around US$ 90 trillion in infrastructure. Much of this investment will need to be "greened" to secure an orderly transition to a sustainable economy. The United Nations Conference for Trade and Development estimates that about US $5 trillion to $7 trillion annually will be needed to finance the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals promoted by the UN in developing countries, which includes infrastructure development, poverty eradication and other key goals core to sustainable development.
The G20 is the world’s premier platform for international cooperation in economic and financial policy. Its core mission to advance balanced and sustained growth must reflect the ambitions embodied in landmark agreements reached elsewhere in 2015, most significantly, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change. Recent significant developments in economic policy commitments have aligned them with sustainable development. Green growth strategies have moved from the margin to the centre of many countries’ forward planning. Fossil fuel subsidies are now widely accepted as unhealthy for both the economy and the environment. Clean energy has become a driving force for technology and business innovation.
by UNRIC
UNRIC caught up with Nick Robins, Co-Director of the UN Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System and asked him some questions at the EU Commission Green Week Conference this week.
by Nick Robins
Last month, around 170 countries signed the Paris Climate Agreement, raising hopes that the world’s best chance of curbing climate change can be brought into force well ahead of 2020. Getting countries to agree and sign the deal is one thing but mobilising the trillions of dollars need for the move to a prosperous, low-carbon and resilient economy is quite another. Yet, what was striking about the COP21 negotiations last December was the innovative way in which often tense question of financing this transition was addressed.
by Simon Zadek
The IMF Spring Meetings last week was a red-letter week in progressing The Financial System We Need. Yes, it was a week when the UNEP Inquiry’s core messages went mainstream in style. It was the week when Hank Paulson, ex-head of US Treasury with Governor of China’s Central Bank, Zhou Xiaochuan, got together at an event co-hosted by the UNEP Inquiry and the Paulson Institute and declared to an assembly of financial market heavyweights that green finance is critical to our collective futures and core to the development of tomorrow’s financial system.
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