Speakers say change to sustainable energy, if well managed, can provide great opportunities for job creation, economic growth in the developing world
Geneva, 29-30 November and 1 December 2011 Rooms XXIV and XVII Palais des Nations
Geneva, 30 November 2011 - Raising living standards in poor countries can and should be done at the same time as the world shifts to "green" energy use, and such a feat is possible if global efforts are well designed and implemented, high-level officials told a conference this morning.
"Green growth should be inclusive," UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi said, opening a whole day´s debate on the theme of "How emerging economies will green the world".
The meeting, which began on Tuesday, 29 November, and will conclude on Thursday, 1 December, is co-organized by UNCTAD and the EnergyPact Foundation, a Swiss-based organization which focuses on the balanced use of energy and on what it terms "energy-environment-development issues".
Mr. Supachai went on to say that the shift to renewable and sustainable energy provides a great opportunity in the developing world "to stimulate economic diversification, generate employment for the poor, and increase the access of the poor to basic services such as energy, water, housing, education, communications, electricity and transport." He said that UNCTAD´s Technology and Innovation Report , released on Tuesday, 29 November, focuses on this subject.
"It is hoped that a greening economy will continue to promote a race to the top for environmental performance, rather than a race to the bottom which it was feared would arise from competitive cost reductions in a globalized economy," he said.
He and others stressed that technological advances allowing affordable renewable-energy use must be shared with developing countries, and that such countries´ exports, economic growth and industrialization must not and need not be hindered by future environmentally-based restrictions on energy use, i.e. by the so-called "green protectionism".
For example, developing countries have proved adept at manufacturing such renewable energy products as solar panels, wind turbines, and energy-efficient light bulbs - accounting in 2008 for 50 per cent of world exports of those goods, Mr. Supachai said.
Speakers emphasized that limiting the damage from climate change would require a seamless approach to applying renewable energy technology: all countries must participate, as the effects of climate shifts apply across borders.
Among others addressing the morning session, Cherif Rahmani, Algeria´s Minister for the Environment and Land Planning, delivering a message from the President of Algeria, Mr. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, said that recent experience had shown that economic growth and renewable energy use were mutually reinforcing. He stated that Algeria was taking green economic growth so seriously that it had plans to invest $80 billion by 2030 in renewable energy generation, including the construction of a zero-emission "green city".
Mr. Rahmani, who is also chief of the African group of negotiators on climate-change issues, promised that Africa would take a unified, active approach to the use of renewable energy and to combating climate change. Globally, efforts to these ends must respect the development aspirations of people in Africa and other poor regions of the world, he said. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change must be upheld and strengthened, he told the meeting.
Amedeo Teti, Director-General for Foreign Trade at Italy´s Ministry of Industry and Energy, said that it was vital to "facilitate the exchange of environmentally friendly technology". More was at stake than "purely material and mercantile matters". He went on to say that the major contribution that trade policy could provide - for example through the regulations of the European Union - was to ease the flow of such technology and to help spur both the environmental and the economic progress that could result.
Alexandre Dimitrijevic, President of EnergyPact Foundation, told the meeting that emerging powers were among the world´s greatest producers both of renewable-energy goods and of fossil-fuel emissions, and were obviously vital to halting climate change and establishing a global economy based on sustainable energy use. Half of the world´s existing wind-turbine capacity was located in China, he noted.
Panel discussions were scheduled for the remainder of the day, on the topics "Converting to the green economy: the new global deal for growth and sustainability"; "Urbanization: part of the problem, part of the solution" (in partnership with the Asian Development Bank); "International investment in infrastructure and climate: the present, the way forward" (also in partnership with the Asian Development Bank); and "Finding the optimal energy mix for the twenty-first century".
The UNCTAD-EnergyPact meeting is being held to focus discussion in the run-up to the UNCTAD XIII quadrennial conference to be held in Doha, Qatar, from 21 to 26 April 2012, and the Rio +20 conference set for 4-6 June 2012.
A special session on 1 December, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Non-Aligned Movement, will examine the way in which the challenges of climate change can be met in a sustainable manner, with a particular focus on how cooperation among developing countries (or "South-South" cooperation) can contribute to that goal.
