Green economy for sustainable development

In recent times, government leaders, politicians, economists, ecologists and common people around the globe are increasingly becoming familiar with the concepts of green economy, green growth, green accounts, green banking and green jobs. Lots of seminars and publicity are taking place in different countries to create awareness on these among the general people and the policymakers.
Developing countries have invested heavily in green technology, causing the south-south renewable trade to grow faster than global trade, a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) revealed.
Speaking at the launch of the report, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner referred to a widely-held belief that environmental goods and services could potentially harm the economies of developing states, because they cannot have a competitive edge over goods and services based on industrial technology.
The UNEP defines a green economy as one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. Green economy is no more a hypothetical one. The transition to green economy has already started and the countries involved are getting the economic benefits including sustainable development and poverty reduction. A green economy does not favour one political perspective over another. It's relevant to all economies, be they state or more market-led. It is not a replacement for sustainable development. Rather, it's a way of realising that development at the national, regional and global levels.
Greening-the-economy concept has turned popular in Africa to a great extent. Kenya's transition to a green economy, for example, could produce major economic benefits - equivalent to an estimated US$ 45 billion by 2030 - as well as greater food security, a cleaner environment and higher productivity of natural resources, according to a new study launched by the government of Kenya and the UNEP. Kenya finds that the transition to an inclusive, low emission, resource-efficient green economy will result in stronger economic growth and increased wealth creation opportunities by 2021.
It's a piece of great news that the sun comes up on top of  green economy. Some countries have already embraced the energy dimension of a green economy. The concept of a green economy, with its links to sustainable development and poverty reduction, has gone from interesting idea to one of the top two issues at the coming United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Many people may wonder whether the green economy is just a pleasing jargon or a genuinely new transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient and sustainable 21st century. Is it the ultimate departure from the development models of the past that its advocate proclaims, or just another case of the emperor's new environmental clothes?
Perhaps the answer can be found in some of the extraordinary transitions taking place in electricity and energy sectors around the globe. Many people, for example, sneer at the idea that solar power could be anything but a costly white elephant, boasted by environmentalists. In 2002, one private equity fund estimated that annual installations of solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays might reach 1.5 gigawatts by 2015. In fact, 17.5GW was installed in 2010, up 130 per cent from 2009. And PV installations are forecast to rise further this year, by perhaps 20.5GW, taking global capacity to about 50GW - the equivalent of 15 nuclear reactors. This is not happening only in developed economies like Germany, Spain, and the US but in countries like Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and Morocco.
Indeed, according to an estimate by IMS Market Research, more than 30 countries will be part of this solar revolution by 2015. This has not come about by chance. Some countries have moved early to energy dimension of a green economy and have introduced the necessary public policies and incentives. Considerable manufacturing capacity has been added, which has halved costs over the past two years. In fact, PV prices are set to be halved again this year.
A nuclear power plant can take 10 to 15 years to build, and a coal-fired power station five years. But mid-size solar plants of 5-10 megawatts are now taking only about three months to get from the planning stage to construction. With the start of smart grids and free-market pricing, solar PV seems well positioned to provide solutions that are quick to build. Considering the pros and cons of nuclear power plant and coal-fired power plant, many countries are switching over to solar power.
In sharp contrast, some developing countries like Bangladesh are still going for nuclear power plant and coal-fired power plant for generating energy which conscious ecologists and environmentalists termed as myopic planning, risking the lives of millions of people and a big blow to the ecosystem and biodiversity of the country with 160 million people.
The green shoots of a green economy are emerging across the power sector, driven by concerns about climate change, air pollution, and energy security as well as by the desire to generate new kinds of competitive, employment-generating industries. These green shoots can also be seen in the growth of recycling industries in South Korea, or the way Indonesia is factoring forests into its social and economic planning as part of heaving green economy. Bangladesh can't be an exception to the developed and emerging countries in greening the economy.
Decades of creating new wealth through a 'brown economy' model haven't substantially addressed social marginalisation and resource depletion, and we are still far from achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Sustainability is still a vital long-term goal, but we must work on greening the economy to get us there. To make the transition to a green economy, specific enabling conditions will be required. These supporting conditions consist of national regulations, policies, subsidies and incentives, and international market and legal infrastructure and trade and aid protocols. At present, conditions are heavily weighed against the prevailing brown economy, which, inter alia, depends excessively on fossil fuel energy. Facilitating conditions for a green economy can pave the way for the success of public and private investment in greening the world's economies. At a national level, examples of such enabling conditions are changes to fiscal policy, reform and reduction of environmentally harmful subsidies, employing new market-based instruments, shifting public investments to  key 'green' sectors, greening public procurement; and improving environmental rules and regulations as well as their enforcement.
At an international level, there are also opportunities to add to market infrastructure, improve trade and aid flows, and forge greater international cooperation.
The world economy has quadrupled over the last quarter of a century, benefiting hundreds of millions of people. In contrast, however, 60 per cent of the world's major ecosystem goods and services that underpin livelihoods have been used unsustainably. Indeed, this is because the economic growth of recent decades has been accomplished mainly through drawing down natural resources, without allowing stocks to rejuvenate, and through allowing widespread ecosystem degradation and loss, deforestation without adequate reforestation. Some countries like China, the US and South Korea have invested huge amount and undertaken plethora of plans to encompass the stark effects of highly industrialisation. The developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America may come forward to carry out plans and programmes to make the countries' economy green that helps achieve sustainable development and alleviate poverty in one hand and on the other hand it would save the world from the imminent environmental catastrophe.
The writer is a CFO of a private group of industries
[email protected]