Hilary Benn hosted the launch of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Green Economy Initiative at Defra today, highlighting the importance of building a greener and more equitable global economy.
In the current economic climate, the shift to a green economy has become more important than ever. UNEP’s Initiative will accelerate this change by identifying policies which decouple economic growth from environmental degradation, and highlighting the huge opportunities available.
Mobilizing and re-focusing the global economy towards investments in clean technologies and ‘natural’ infrastructure such as forests, soils and water will bring about real growth, combat climate change and trigger an employment boom that will most benefit the world’s poorest, both at home and abroad.
Speaking at the launch event, Hilary Benn said:
"The green technological revolution needs to gather pace, as more and more of the worlds jobs will in future be in environmental industries. Britain is committed to building a green economy at home and abroad: it will be good for business good for the environment and good for development.
“UNEP's initiative will help make this change; in particular by helping us to understand just how much we depend on the environment - soil, air, water and biodiversity - for our very existence."
Dubbed the ‘New Green Deal’, the event featured speeches from Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn; Chief Scientific Adviser, Bob Watson; Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director; and Pavan Sukhdev, the senior Deutsche Bank economist who is heading UNEP’s Initiative alongside his work on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) – a Stern-style review of ecosystem services, which Defra is also supporting.
