UNEP published the Green Economy Report (GER) today. I've been looking forward to reading this as it comes from the team that produced the impressive Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Study (TEEB).
TEEB aimed to be the "Stern report" for biodiversity, but it was very different piece of work. GER, on the other hand, does something very similar to Stern - it lays out contrasting scenarios for global investment and explores their consequences. It describes the world's situation as one of gross misallocation of capital, and then explores a scenario where the world invests 2% of GDP into re-allocation of capital across ten major sectors. The take-home-message: investing in areas such as forest protection, subsidy reform in energy and fisheries, and resource efficiency will result in a long-term increase in economic growth:
There are great talking points in GER's summary for policymakers, but I think there's a lot to learn by delving into the details. I hope to write a few in-depth posts over the next few weeks exploring insights from the report.