Making The Green Recovery Work For Jobs Income And Growth

This Policy Brief focuses on how countries can create opportunities for a green and inclusive economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. A green recovery will significantly enhance the resilience of economies and societies in the face of both the severe recession and accelerating environmental challenges. The Brief also undertakes a preliminary review of announced recovery and stimulus policies in OECD and Key Partner countries. While many countries are focusing on measures that can drive sustainability while boosting jobs, income and growth, a number of countries are proposing measures that support environmentally damaging activities. Measuring and evaluating the environmental impacts of recovery policies over time is crucial, and a set of indicators, covering a broad array of critical environmental dimensions, is proposed for this purpose.

A ‘green economy’ must be built on ‘green jobs’ - the kind of employment that is low carbon, intended to reduce energy use and expected to restore environmental quality. But attempts to define exactly what a ‘green job’ is have led to varied and often contradictory answers. There are many unresolved questions including whether we consider jobs in the nuclear fuel industry to be green jobs? Or is a worker at a glass making company which supplies the glass for the solar photovoltaic industry doing a green job given that glass making is a ‘dirty’ industry? This book deals with the relationship between "green" concepts (green jobs, green economy, green growth) and sustainable development. It examines to which extent creation of green jobs supports overall economic development as opposed to creation of elitist jobs and greenwashing. In order to do so, general conceptual frameworks for green jobs, green economy, green growth and green policy are presented as well as their implementation in ten countries selected among the Group of Twenty. The selection includes advanced (the European Union, the United States of America, Australia, Canada, Republic of Korea, Japan) and developing countries (Mexico, China, Turkey and Brazil). The analysis presented in this book shows that although green concept is well-intentioned, its implementation depends on local circumstances – economic, political and social. Developed countries perceive green growth as a way to create new markets and demand, while developing countries rely more on labor intensive growth and less expensive green jobs. Thus, greening the economy does not diminish differences between rich and poor. This book is suitable for those who study and work in Ecological Economics, Sustainable Development and Labor Economics.

Green jobs are an important issue concerning the current political and ecological situation worldwide. Creating new jobs in the field of environmental improvement is an aim for the administration of President Biden and his party. This work presents a governmental agenda on attracting middle-class representatives to the green jobs sector.

The green transition is changing jobs, skills, and local economies. It poses new challenges but also opportunities, both of which will differ across places within countries. This report, Job Creation and Local Economic Development 2023: Bridging the Great Green Divide, provides novel evidence on those risks and opportunities across regions in 30 OECD countries.

Inclusive Green Growth: The Pathway to Sustainable Development makes the case that greening growth is necessary, efficient, and affordable. Yet spurring growth without ensuring equity will thwart efforts to reduce poverty and improve access to health, education, and infrastructure services.

Climate change resulting from CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions poses a huge threat to human welfare. To contain that threat, the world needs to cut emissions by about 50 per cent by 2050, and to start cutting emissions now. A global agreement to take action is vital. A fair global deal will require the UK to cut emissions by at least 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050. In this report, the Committee on Climate Change explains why the UK should aim for an 80 per cent reduction by 2050 and how that is attainable, and then recommends the first three budgets that will define the path to 2022. But the path is attainable at manageable cost, and following it is essential if the UK is to play its fair part in avoiding the far higher costs of harmful climate change. Part 1 of the report addresses the 2050 target. The 80 per cent target should apply to the sum of all sectors of the UK economy, including international aviation and shipping. The costs to the UK from this level of emissions reduction can be made affordable - estimated at between 1-2 per cent of GDP in 2050. In part 2, the Committee sets out the first three carbon budgets covering the period 2008-22, and examines the feasible reductions possible in various sectors: decarbonising the power sector; energy use in buildings and industry; reducing domestic transport emissions; reducing emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases; economy wide emissions reductions to meet budgets. The third part of the report examines wider economic and social impacts from budgets including competitiveness, fuel poverty, security of supply, and differences in circumstances between the regions of the UK.

This paper provides estimates of output multipliers for spending in clean energy and biodiversity conservation, as well as for spending on non-ecofriendly energy and land use activities. Using a new international dataset, we find that every dollar spent on key carbon-neutral or carbon-sink activities can generate more than a dollar’s worth of economic activity. Although not all green and non-ecofriendly expenditures in the dataset are strictly comparable due to data limitations, estimated multipliers associated with spending on renewable and fossil fuel energy investment are comparable, and the former (1.1-1.5) are larger than the latter (0.5-0.6) with over 90 percent probability. These findings survive several robustness checks and lend support to bottom-up analyses arguing that stabilizing climate and reversing biodiversity loss are not at odds with continuing economic advances.

Available online: https://pub.norden.org/temanord2022-527/ This report assesses the “green stimulus” relevance of the covid-19 stimulus measures in the Nordic region. By green stimulus we mean measures that can achieve economic stimulus while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing environmental and natural resource quality.All Nordic countries have implemented comprehensive covid-19 stimulus packages, amounting to between 2000 euro per capita in Finland to 4400 euro per capita in Denmark. We identified that at least 6-21 percent of the measures suit the definition as green stimulus in terms of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. A lower share, at least 2-13 percent, contribute to increase greenhouse gas emissions. The picture is almost the same for the environment. The remaining measures are either assessed as not having any significant impact on emissions or the environment.

In recent years, the world has been changing considerably. Within the many obstacles, barriers, and opportunities, three significant challenges should be considered for the future planning of our territories and cities: seeking to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), facing climate change, and performing a shift towards digitalization. Considering these three challenges, we can work toward a more sustainable future for the environment. The Handbook of Research on Sustainable Development Goals, Climate Change, and Digitalization elaborates on sustainability issues in the planning and development field regarding the environment. This text promotes understanding about the dynamics, challenges, and opportunities for the new decade regarding our common future planning. Covering topics such as circular economy, economic-ecological principles, and sustainable resilience, this book is essential for academicians, researchers, policymakers, environmentalists, scientists, technicians, decision makers, practitioners, and students.

In Green Recovery, sustainability expert Andrew Winston argues that environmental challenges and increasing "green" awareness have not dissipated in the wake of the financial crisis. Business leaders must face both problems simultaneously. Fortunately, some of the same strategies that address environmental issues can help companies survive today's economic conditions--and prosper when the good times return. Winston explains that going green is essentially about doing more with less. Viewed through this lens, green initiatives transform from costly luxuries to powerful recession-fighting, profit-making tools. The book shows how leading companies--including Boeing, Disney, DuPont, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, and Wal-Mart--are ramping up efficiency, innovation, and employee motivation to save money quickly and preserve capital that can be reinvested for future growth. And this book provides a road map for using green initiatives to: get lean; get smart; get creative; and get engaged, so you can survive today's turmoil--and chart a winning path to the future.--From publisher description.