Economic Development Blog

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived just in time to rescue the United States delegation on the final day of the Rio+20 Conference with an address to the plenary meeting.

Sec. Hillary Clinton at Rio+20 (Photo – state.gov)

Sec. Clinton outlined the US position on sustainable development. She said in her address that in the 21st century, the only viable development is sustainable development.

Sec. Clinton said that we can’t be boxed in by past orthodoxies, and we should make decisions based on research and scientific evidence.

We should be thinking different about harnessing the power of the market. We need to leverage private sector’s investments using smart policies to catalyze sustainable growth.

She also talked about the six signature initiative launched by the US delegation to Rio+20. The US is engaging in new partnerships involving government, the private sector and civil society to tackle sustainable development challenges.

One of the initiatives announced is the U.S. Water Partnership. Over 40 American public, private and civil society organizations are dedicating more than $500 million in financial and in-kind resources to address water problems around the globe. The Coca-Cola Company is chipping in with $3.5 million. NASA is investing $21 million in the form of five years of research. The U.S. EPA is providing regulatory and policy support.

“Sharing American knowledge and expertise in water protection will allow us to mobilize resources and bring about real progress in the United States and abroad,” said EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “The cross-sector partnerships that emerge will also allow us to rapidly scale-up innovative solutions so they can be deployed in places all over the globe – especially in the developing world, where water needs are greatest.”

Another initiative is the Solid Waste Partnership to reduce methane and black carbon pollutants from municipal solid waste that was launched last year. The members include Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), the World Bank, the Clinton Climate Initiative /C-40 and the Global Methane Initiative.

The third one is the public-private “Reducing Deforestation through Sustainable Supply Chains” partnership between the U.S. Government and the companies of the Consumer Goods Forum.

The fourth one is the U.S.-Brazil Joint Initiative on Urban Sustainability (JIUS). The JIUS platform will link cities around the world to large-scale investors and encourage new public-private partnerships to invest in sustainable infrastructure and job creation.

The fifth one is the U.S.-Africa Clean Energy Finance Initiative which will introduce collaborative financing mechanism to help mobilize clean energy investments in Africa and low-income countries throughout the developing world. The State Department, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency are part of the initiative.

The last initiative is about women and natural resources that will work to identify ways to engage women in sectors such as fisheries, forestry, food security and health. In her address, Sec. Clinton highlighted the fact that the Rio+20 outcome document devotes a strong section to opportunities for women, and added that to reach our goals in sustainable development, we have to protect women’s reproductive rights.

As the Rio+20 conference kicks off in Brazil, the United Nations has already announced that member states have agreed on an outcome document.

Rio+20 Outcome Document (Photo – uncsd2012.org)

“We now have a text which will be adopted at the Conference,” Rio+20’s Secretary-General, Sha Zukang. “We think the text contains a lot of action, and if this action is implemented, and if follow-up measures are taken, it will indeed make a tremendous difference in generating positive global change.”

Here’s the full outcome document (slideshare), which goes on for over 50 pages. The part where they call for providing more help to states for transitioning to a green economy starts on page 9.

The text will be put forward for adoption by Heads of State at the conclusion of Rio+20 on Friday.

The document spells out the need to establish sustainable development goals and mobilize financing for sustainable development, as well as the promotion of sustainable consumption and production.

It calls for the need to include women, non-governmental organizations, and indigenous groups in the sustainable development agenda, and calls on the private sector to engage in sustainable corporate business practices.

CIDSE, an international alliance of 16 Catholic development agencies from Europe and North America, was sharply critical of this last part regarding the private sector and about the agreement’s failure to address the links between climate change and agriculture.

“If the text stays as it is, this conference will be a historic failure,” said CIDSE Secretary General Bernd Nilles.

“The text contains carrots, but no sticks. There is no mention of regulatory measures to tackle climate change, only incentives for private investment in agriculture,” said Anika Schroeder of CIDSE’s German member Misereor.

Rio+20 Secretary-General Sha Zukang explained that the document is a “compromise text” in which countries have had to both give and take to achieve progress.

“Like all negotiations, there will be some countries that feel the text could be more ambitious. Or, others who feel their own proposals could be better reflected, while still others might prefer to have their own language,” he said. “But, let’s be clear: multilateral negotiations require give and take.”

US Climate Change Envoy Todd Stern said it was a strong step forward and pointed out the document’s call to strengthen the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Stern denied charges that the US delegation had blocked a deal to protect marine diversity. The document also reaffirms the commitment of all member states to fully implement Agenda 21.

In addition to the outcome text, there have been over 400 voluntary commitments for sustainable development by member states in the lead-up to the Rio+20 meeting which runs from June 20-22, 2012.

Rio+20 website – www.uncsd2012.org/

With a day left for Rio+20 to kick off, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is doing everything it can to extract some concrete benefits even before the landmark gathering of world leaders to discuss sustainable development gets underway. To follow up on the Inclusive Wealth Index unveiled a few days ago, the UNEP has now announced the launch of the “Global Initiative for Resource-Efficient Cities.”

Resource Efficient Cities (Photo – UNEP)

This new initiative by the UNEP is open to cities with populations of 500,000 or more, and they aim to get at least 200 members by 2015. Sao Paulo, Malmo, Heidelberg, Quezon City and Gwangju are already on board. National interest has been expressed by Japan, Brazil, France and the United States.

They will work with local and national governments, the private sector and civil society groups to promote energy efficient buildings, efficient water use, sustainable waste management and other activities.

“Decoupling economic growth from unsustainable resource use and environmental impacts-especially in urban areas – underpins the transition to a low-carbon, resource efficient green economy,” said UN under-secretary-general and UNEP executive director Achim Steiner.

The initiative will support cities in three ways:-

-         Providing access and advice for city decision-makers on technical expertise, capacity building and funding opportunities for improving resource efficiency.

-         Promoting research on resource efficiency and sustainable consumption and production.

-         Creating a network for cities and organizations to exchange experiences and peer-review projects for mutual benefit.

Urban areas account for 50 percent of all waste, generate 60-80 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions and consume 75 percent of natural resources. The potential for more damage at a faster rate becomes even more acute when you consider that urban areas currently occupy only 3 percent of the earth’s surface.

The UNEP also simultaneously launched a report with practical information and case studies from China, Brazil, Germany and other countries on how a city can move towards being resource efficient.

The report examines several initiatives that aim to meet the rising urban energy demands in a sustainable way. It gives the example of Freiburg, Germany where renewable energy feed-in tariff strategies have allowed the city to invest in photovoltaic, wind and other renewable energy systems. Household energy consumption has decreased by up to 80 percent due to Freiburg’s energy-efficient housing standards.

The UNEP suggests a six-step program towards becoming a sustainable, resource efficient city, including smart urban design, finance for adoption of green technologies and support for innovation.

Read the brochure or download the full UNEP report on “Sustainable, Resource Efficient Cities in the 21st Century: Making it Happen.”

It seems to be fashionable these days to develop an index for sustainable growth. Last week, it was the nef Happy Planet Index. Now as the clock counts down to Rio+20, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has launched its own sustainability index.

Inclusive Wealth Index (Photo – Cambridge Univ. Press)

The Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI) looks beyond GDP and the Human Development Index (HDI) to include a full range of assets such as manufactured, human and natural capital.

IWI was unveiled as part of the Inclusive Wealth Report 2012 (IWR), a joint initiative launched at Rio+20 by the UNEP and the United Nations University’s International Human Dimensions Program on global environmental change (UNU-IHDP).

The report studied changes in inclusive wealth in 20 countries, which together account for almost three quarters of global GDP, from 1990 to 2008. Economic growth in 19 out the 20 countries is masking a serious depletion of natural resources.

Six of the 20 countries also saw a decline in their inclusive wealth, putting them on an unsustainable track. That would be Russia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, South Africa and Nigeria.

Despite registering GDP growth, China, the United States, South Africa and Brazil were shown to have significantly depleted their natural capital base, with said base being the sum of a set of renewable and non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels, forests and fisheries.

Natural resources per-capita declined by 33 percent in South Africa, 25 percent in Brazil, 20 percent in the United States, and 17 percent in China. The only exception was Japan, which did not see a fall in natural capital due to an increase in forest cover.

Based only on GDP, the economies of China, the United States, Brazil and South Africa grew by 422 percent, 37 percent, 31 percent and 24 percent respectively between 1990 and 2008.

But when measured based on the IWI formula, the Chinese and Brazilian economies increased by only 45 and 18 percent respectively. The United States economy grew by just 13 percent, while the South African economy actually decreased by 1 percent.

“Rio+20 is an opportunity to call time on Gross Domestic Product as a measure of prosperity in the 21st century, and as a barometer of an inclusive Green Economy transition—it is far too silent on major measures of human well-being namely many social issues and the state of a nation’s natural resources,” said UN under-secretary general and UNEP executive director Achim Steiner.

The countries studied in the report are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Japan, Kenya, Nigeria, Norway, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, USA, United Kingdom and Venezuela.

Read the full Inclusive Wealth Report 2012 (IWR) – Download (pdf)