Governance for Green Growth?

Neil Gunningham Climate and Environmental Governance Network Australian National University

What is green growth?

"environmentally sustainable economic progress to foster low carbon, socially inclusive (UNESCAP) an emphasis on the economic benefits of green alternatives to conventional growth models: Maximise economic output, while minimising
ecological burden

less emphasis on the social (poverty reduction) than under Sustainable Development? Emphasis on
- promoting sustainable consumption and production; - greening the market and business; - renewable energy supporting further economic growth - developing sustainable infrastructure; green tax and budget reforms.

How did it gain traction?

promoted by various international organizations: UNESCAP, UNEP, OECD, a reframing of SD with a reassuring economic emphasis For the developing world, growth-biased green discourse proposed to escape from poverty, For developed world, the global recession is driving green growth discourse GG as part of stimulus packages following GFC

Green Growth at the national level: South Korea

"growth achieved by saving and using energy and resources efficiently securing new growth engines through research and development of green technology, creating new job opportunities, achieving harmony between the economy and environment towards a service based economy, - economic growth with minimal energy use. - reducing environmental impact of that energy supply - R&D into green technologies to achieve international prominence.

Critiques

fundamental assumption that grown is desirable or even possible Does Green Growth necessarily address resource scarcity and over-consumption might it exacerbate them? But the aim is not increased consumption but - creation of new jobs in sustainable energy fields to replace lost jobs from traditional fossil fuel sectors , - to increase living standards, including health, education and freedoms.

Ecological Modernisation
ecologically sound capitalism is not only possible, but worth working towards. strategies such as eco-efficiency can simultaneously increase efficiency and minimise pollution and waste ecological modernization will enable a dissolution of the conflict between economic progress and responsible environmental management such an outcome requires government regulation in particular will need to. governments role includes: - nudging firms towards cleaner production, - promote innovation in environmental technology - Raising environmental awareness and - providing financial incentives for cleaner production

Governance of Green Growth

How can the transition to a green growth economy be achieved? What roles can governments and other actors play? Is there a need for international coordination and if so how? these are questions of regulation and governance, concerned with societal steering.

Green Growth Governance Globally norm development Stern: green growth as a way to overcome the two defining and interconnected challenges of our century climate change and poverty. Climate change is largely the result of our dependence on fossil fuels and the poverty of 1.5 billion people is exacerbated by a lack of access to electricity. Key is investments in energy infrastructure + renewables What is needed, is radical and co-ordinated policy action across all regions. (eg technology development and transfer, intellectual pty regime etc)- an energy revolution.

UNEP and the Green New Deal

2010 UNEP book "A Global Green New Deal" took the Green New Deal concept global, identified global governance as a priority area for international action UNEP advocated for the G20 to be the main global policy forum to promote global green growth.

G 20: 2010 Communique

In 2010, under the leadership of South Korea, G20 focus on Green Growth and environmental issues. Committed to support country-led green growth policies that promote environmentally sustainable global growth, employment creation and energy access for the poor. Recognised sustainable green growth is inherently a part of sustainable development, enabling countries to leapfrog old technologies Committed to take steps to create enabling environments conducive to development and deployment of energy efficiency and clean energy technologies, including technical transfer and capacity building. the G20 can facilitate international allocation of aid and multilateral funding to support the Global Green New Deal. In 2011 however, France led G20 and green growth and environmental concerns were sidelined.

OECD
2009 Declaration on Green Growth at the Meeting of the Council at Ministerial Level encouraged domestic policy reform and advocated "close coordination of green growth measures with labour market and human capital formation policies" towards an actionable policy framework
cross-country comparisons of effective policies, international benchmarking, examples of leading countries and performance indicators to help governments overcome political economy concerns. offer a Toolkit with concrete policy recommendations and actions".

The role of different indicators to guide growth? what we measure shapes what we collectively strive to pursue Need to distinguish between an assessment of current wellbeing and an assessment of sustainability an increasing gap between the information contained in aggregate GDP data and what counts for peoples well-being need to determine how to re-frame growth beyond GDP in a way that shifts emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring peoples well-being

At Domestic Level:

An effective Green New Deal approach will require a legislative framework backed up by price signals adequate to accelerate the shift to a low-carbon economy

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green growth fiscal reform, where taxes and charges would be increased on things that are bad, for example resource use and pollution, and reduced on things that are good, for example employing labour. signals should include rising carbon taxes and a price for traded carbon that is high enough to cause a dramatic drop in carbon emissions. traditional energy-saving measures such as insulation through to large-scale combined heat and power. greatly accelerated uptake of renewable technology (requiring substantial marketenablement support from the government) But for developing countries
Difficulties in monitoring environmental performance, collecting green taxes or setting up new markets Reform difficult in countries with large informal economy areas and/or weak capacity in environmental policy design or implementation

neo-Keynesian and neo-liberal perspectives

How far is it legitimate for the state to intervene? in UK the Green New Deal is underwritten with the conclusion that markets failed and caused the current financial situation and thus laissez faire theories are flawed.
- the financial crunch: strict regulation of the financial sector; - the climate crunch: funding infrastructure development of green sector by raising taxes. - the coming global energy crunch: investment in infrastructure projects and training.

Neo-Keynesian approaches to stimulus spending, with investments in infrastructure and training programs to increase employment and generate business opportunities. Initially government intervention is required to begin investment in Green areas, once underway however, private investors will realize the economic benefit of them and invest themselves. green growth in the private sector: Corporate Social Responsibility; public-private partnerships etc

Scope for GG in context of globalization, liberalization and free trade?

Pressure for short term profits vs long term investment but large capital investments are needed to push towards breakthrough technologies

Need for government intervention and international coordination

Whats new about green growth governance? How much is it simply a re-badging of sustainable development? How much is GG rhetoric rather than action? The case of South Korea How much is green growth governance or regulation a repackaging of existing strategies? Is GG just ecological modernisation by another name?