New York, Mar 28 2011 12:10PM
Africa is well poised to take advantage of a host of opportunities on
the continent for building a 'green economy,' one that generates
decent jobs in an environmentally sustainable way, a senior United
Nations official said today.
"This continent is in many ways the envy of the 21st century world,"
Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme
(UNEP), told African ministers of finance, planning and economic
development gathered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
"Africa is rich in the kinds of natural resources that in many parts
of the world have been over-exploited and diminished by centuries of
unsustainable development," he
<"http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=2636&ArticleID=8675&l=en&t=long">stated.
This includes not just precious and semi-precious metals, but also
nature-based resources such as forests and biodiversity, which support
tourism and could also underpin inventions and pharmaceutical
breakthroughs.
At the same time, many parts of the continent are rich in so-called
natural fuels such as wind, solar and geothermal.
"The fundamental question," said Mr. Steiner, "is how will all this
potential be harvested for the benefit of Africa's citizens and in a
way that promotes stability in Africa and beyond."
He noted that the green economy is not a substitute for sustainable
development, but a way of realizing it. "It is as relevant to
developing economies and it is to developed ones; it is as central to
more state-led economies as it is to more market-led ones. It is not a
straitjacket, nor is it prescriptive."
In February UNEP released a
<"http://www.unep.org/GreenEconomy/Portals/93/documents/Full_GER_screen.pdf">report
outlining how investing 2 per cent of global gross domestic product
(GDP) in 10 sectors can catalyze the transition to a green economy.
It also provided a global compilation of case studies from across the
globe, including Africa, where forward-looking policies by governments
are "watering the green shoots" of the global green economy.
One example is South Africa, whose Green Economy Plan focuses on
investments that create more decent jobs, and where nearly $1 billion
is being spent on railways, energy-efficient buildings, and water and
waste management.
He also highlighted Kenya's new green energy policy, including a
feed-in tariff and 15-year power purchase agreement, which is
catalyzing an initial target of 500 megawatts of energy from
geothermal, wind and sugar wastes systems.
Later this week, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will visit Kenya's main
geothermal sites, located north-west of Nairobi, to learn first-hand
how these developments have been achieved, as well as how they are set
to generate thousands of new jobs in the clean energy sector while
reducing dependency on imported fossil fuels.
"The rest of the world can learn from Africa, but Africa can also
learn from other continents," said Mr. Steiner.
He added that the upcoming UN Conference on Sustainable Development,
set to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 – 20 years after the
Earth Summit of 1992, could prove to be one of the most transformative
moments in international affairs.
"In 1992, we could only perhaps glimpse the scale some of the
challenges emerging on the radar from climate change and the loss of
healthy, productive cropland," he noted.
"But in the world of the here and now, many of those challenges have
become all too real. There is an urgency to swiftly and decisively
evolve the sustainable development agenda onto a far more focused and
far reaching level."
He said that the question now emerging is not whether a green economy
is desirable but how to realize a green economy in practical terms.
"Rio+20 offers an opportunity to accelerate and scale-up transitions,
already under way across this region and indeed across the world in
order to catalyze growth and employment opportunities for around nine
billion people by 2050," he stated. "But in a way that also maintains
and enhances the regional and global planetary services that underpin
wealth generation in the first place.
"Africa's experience on what has worked and what has not worked over
the past two decades offers an invaluable foundation upon which a
transformational outcome next year can be built."
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