Download Green Economy Report - UNEP

Towards a green economy
500
Key messages
1. A Green Economy grows faster than a brown economy over time, while maintaining and
restoring natural capital. Greening not only generates increases in wealth, in particular a gain in
ecological commons or natural capital, but also produces a higher rate of GDP growth – a classical
measure of economic performance. GDP in the green scenario is projected to overtake business-asusual
within ten years. An adjusted measure of net domestic product, accounting for both physical
capital depreciation and also for natural capital depletion, achieves this result even earlier, indicating
that a green economy offers improved and integrated capital management.
2. Business-as-usual (BAU) can only deliver development gains at an unaffordable, and
probably unsustainable, price. Under a BAU scenario, which replicates historical trends and assumes
no fundamental changes in policy or external conditions to alter the trends, development benefits
in terms of GDP growth, poverty reduction, and income distribution may continue for some time.
But, these development gains would be achieved at an unaffordable, and probably unsustainable,
price. BAU continues on the current high carbon intensity development path, with its associated
environmental impacts, especially in terms of the long term concentration of atmospheric GHGs,
which would approximate 1,000 ppm CO 2 -eq, resulting in temperature increases most likely around
4 degrees centigrade (as per IPCC scenarios A1B and A2) . In addition, BAU would also significantly
draw down natural capital assets. Our ecological footprint would be more than 2 times the available
biocapacity of the earth.
3. A green economy promotes pro-poor growth and achieves energy and resource efficiency.
A green economy strengthens pro-poor economic growth through building up natural capital, on
which the livelihood of the poor depends. In a green investment scenario, 2 per cent of global GDP
is allocated to greening the energy, manufacturing, transport, buildings, waste, agriculture, fisheries,
water, and forests sectors. In the simulations, these investments help to, by 2050, potentially double
fish stocks, and increase forestland by 1/5, as compared to BAU. They would also reduce use of fossil
fuels by 40 per cent, and demand for water by about 20 per cent, relative to BAU. By maintaining and
building up natural capital and mitigating resource scarcity, these investments would provide the
basis for sustained economic growth over the next twenty to forty years, at least as strong as BAU
with considerably reduced downside risks.