The 2nd Global Green Growth Forum, which took place in October in Copenhagen, brought together 250 business, public and civil society leaders committed to advancing inclusive green growth. The fragile global economic recovery remains an important and challenging backdrop, but the assembled leaders recognise that as growth picks up again across the globe, there cannot be a return to business as usual.
The Forum is a unique platform to catalyse partnerships that can rapidly bring to scale green growth opportunities. Realizing the potentials of green growth requires the effective mobilization at scale of financial, technological and human capital. This will only be possible if governments and the private sector collaborate at the local, national and the international levels to overcome barriers, and create the right incentives for actors to innovate and invest.
The meeting was opened by the Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt, and by the partner countries represented by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea, Hwang-sik Kim. Chairman of the Administrative Control and Transparency Authority of Qatar and the Incoming President of COP18, Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah delivered a statement announcing that his country has joined the Forum.
The overarching theme of the 3GF 2012 was resource efficiency and growth. Recognizing that a return to higher growth rates and employment continue to be at the forefront of politics across the globe, the 3GF 2012 explored the economics and the broader political economy of green growth. The Forum found that greening the global economy offers opportunities for businesses, communities and nations. This is underpinned for example by the growing markets in clean technology; and renewables. Furthermore, going green through enhancing resource efficiency and productivity is increasingly seen as important parts of improving competitiveness both at company and national level.
Speakers highlighted the need to increase the sense of urgency to act. Arguments for postponing the transition efforts until after the current economic crises to green economy were dismissed by compelling evidence presented by various institutions during 3GF, that the cost of inaction would be even greater. According to Angel Gurria, Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the cost of action is lower than the lowest monetary estimates of the damages caused by inaction.
Closing the gap in financing for the transition to a green growth pathway was highlighted as one of the most urgent needs. Key is to catalyse private investment through financial innovation, and leverage scarce public finance and ensure investment grade public policies. The need to reduce fossil fuel subsidies and divert investments currently flowing into carbon intensive development into green growth was highligted. Several partnerships launched and progressed at the 3GF were specifically about financial innovation, with particular focuses on energy efficiency financing and the design of more effective financial instruments for ensuring country and political risk.
Climate change and natural resource depletion disproportionately impact poorer countries with developing countries facing the gravest consequences whilst lacking resources to address these impacts of upscale opportunities. The 3GF emphasised the inclusiveness aspects of the green growth agenda when designing new initiatives. Technological innovation and in particular disruptive innovations are essential elements in the transition to green growth, as well as diffusion and adaption of green technologies, particular in developing countries.
Recognizing that there is not one model for achieving green growth, the Forum featured discussions of relevant experiences from six countries: Brazil, China, Germany, Indonesia, Morocco, and Turkey. In order to exploit the unique character of the 3GF, the focus was on public private partnerships in bringing forward sustainable solutions at country level. The sessions facilitated cross country learning and pointed to commonalities for advancing green growth at country level, including political leadership, private sector entrepreneurship, and innovative financing schemes.
3GF provided an exceptional opportunity to engage directly in dialogue between high-level business and political leaders through a number of smaller plenary settings. High level speakers `stepped off the stage` and spent 60 minutes probing, and being probed, on their role, experience and hopes for advancing green growth through public-private collaboration across sectors. These smaller plenaries was staged in two series over the two days, focusing on the following themes, Day One: “Making Resource Efficient Growth Inclusive” and Day Two: “Breakthroughs for Resource Efficient Growth”.
Eleven concrete Public Private Partnerships were discussed and brought forward in special sessions, which were designed to explore and bring forward concrete suggestions and recommendations on aspects of green growth where public and private action is needed. Those included: Acceleration of policy innovation in support of power sector transformation, promoting sustainable bio-based growth, energy efficiency finance, procurement and private finance initiatives, and Energy Efficiency Indicators.
The conclusions and insights from the 3GF 2012 will be brought into high level international discussions and forums on sustainable development and green growth, including the Climate Summit COP 18 to take place in Doha, Qatar. Particular emphasis will be on bringing sustainability aspects and green growth knowledge and practices into the process initiated to develop sustainability development goals.The participants agreed to continue the work to concretize and bring into action the many recommendations arising from the 3GF 2012 green growth agenda and to meet again in October 2013 to review progress and devise new actions.