HOW EMERGING ECONOMIES WILL GREEN THE WORLD

CONCEPT PAPER

The somehow provocative theme of the 2011 EnergyPact UNCTAD conference aims at addressing energy and climate change issues under new perspectives.

For the first time a major conference dedicated to the energy-environment-development triangle will explore the sustainable and green economy agendas of emerging markets in a specific way.

The definition of "emerging countries" is rather fluid, but they all fit into the category of the "Global Growth Generators" (3G Countries), whose economies have the most promising growth prospects for the next decades. Significant reductions in poverty and the development of a middle class with consumption patterns, lifestyle expectations and socio-political interests and demands increasingly similar to those of its counterparts in developed economies is an important common feature of these economies.

Besides the front runners Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, who are institutionalizing their cooperation; there are around 30 countries which can be considered as emerging economies.

Emerging and developing countries are mostly seen through the lenses of their massive growth needs, large and growing environmental footprint and reluctance towards binding levels of CO² emissions.

But being unwilling to adhere to obligatory frameworks does not mean not to be committed to change.

Instead, emerging economies, in which half of the world's population lives now, are positioning themselves, in different ways, as key drivers in the transition to the green economy. They are creating increasingly cost-effective technologies for supplying energy in developing countries. They have every reason to do so.

The green wealth

Today, 80% of young people in the world live in developing and emerging countries. They need education and jobs. These countries understand that the greening of economies is a new engine of growth. An enormous potential rests on the synergies between the green economy and the knowledge-based economy, as climate change mitigation cannot succeed without large-scale innovation in energy production and use.

Furthermore, emerging and developing countries are much more vulnerable than developed countries to the disastrous effects of climate change. The risk for a citizen to be exposed to a climate-related natural disaster is 79 times higher in a developing country than in an OECD one.

Failure to succeed in climate change mitigation could cause economic losses ranging from 5% to 20% of the world's GDP by 2050. Emerging and developing countries are well aware of estimates that they would bear around 75% of the costs of inaction.

On the other hand, the International Energy Agency foresees 750 billion USD investments per annum in green technologies worldwide. A growing share of these flows of green finance may benefit to emerging and developing countries, either as indigenous investments, or by attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), provided that the right policies to develop their technological capabilities are put in place at the national and international levels.

National agendas, multilateral dynamics

Therefore, emerging and developing countries have a strategic interest in seriously tackling climate change and in contributing to shaping the optimal energy mix for the 21st century.

All emerging economies have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and all are proactively seeking for the best post-Kyoto solutions. Although their legitimate development needs imply a temporary surge of their emissions of greenhouse gases; they are mobilizing their resources for the parallel transformation of their growth patterns. They will not reduce their development. Instead, they will green their growth.

Emerging economies and resource-rich countries need to define their optimal energy mix in line with their natural assets, comparative advantages and specific strategies towards a greener economy - while contributing to the overall effort of the multilateral system in various Organizations and under different formats of international negotiations. Their national agendas complement the global policy framework in the making, towards a more cohesive and cooperative governance for sustainable development.

In this context, the role of emerging countries as key drivers needs to be better perceived, understood and encouraged.

In the fight against climate change, every kind of effort is needed. Greenhouse emissions, whatever their cause, have all the same impact. So we don't need controversy, but an addition of solutions. No one has the monopoly of policy-formulation.

Advanced cooperations

Each initiative, each policy, each innovation acts as a building-block. India, China, Brazil for example are designing greening strategies adapted to their own context —successfully.

Here the role of emerging powers is crucial: first because they are in the process of massive infrastructure building, urban planning and social change; thus the way they are designing their policies will have a tremendous effect. Secondly, because they can enter into partnerships with leading developed countries in a big scale.

As the world's top emitters consist in a group of 15 countries, any agreement among them or with any of them can bring decisive progress to solving the global threat we all face, and at the same time foster innovation, generate investments, create new jobs.

Rather than excessively pointing at individual responsibilities, the international community may grasp bigger and faster gains in promoting approaches based on convergence, partnership and advanced cooperations on a voluntary basis.

The EnergyPact UNCTAD 2011 Conference will put into new perspectives how emerging countries will decisively contribute in this spirit to the multilateral transition towards a greener economy.

Nuclear Energy in the Transition to the Green Economy

The recent nuclear crisis in Japan, caused by a series of natural disasters of unprecedented magnitude, should not delay the necessary assessment of the role of nuclear power in the energy mix of the 21st century. Key issues such as technology innovation, generation IV or thorium-based reactors; small- scale reactors; environmental effects, human health and safety, waste management, training of skilled manpower; must be addressed without taboos.

In the next decades, new clean and renewable technologies will not be sufficiently available, and not all at affordable prices, to respond to the growing needs of the world economy and to create an efficient low-carbon supply system. The fact is that by 2030 fossil energy will still account for 75% of the world's production of energy; while nuclear power is set to represent up to 5% of energy output by 2050. Nuclear energy is likely to remain an important component of the energy mix of many countries during the transition to a green economy. Over 45 countries in the five continents are now embarking upon nuclear power programs. Some 65 countries, mostly emerging and developing ones, have expressed, in total, interest for nuclear power. Even if we are witnessing the suspension of nuclear activities and initiatives, we need to re-think the civil nuclear agenda of the years and decades ahead in light of the current indispensability of this energy source.

Launch of UNCTAD Technology and Innovation Report 2011

The Technology and Innovation Report (TIR) 2011 focuses on policy issues and options to address energy poverty and climate change mitigation through the greater use of renewable energy technologies (RETs). The Report identifies key issues in technology and innovation for the greater use of renewable energy technologies and argues that there are numerous benefits of RETs for developing countries. The potential impacts of RETs in terms of reducing energy poverty, generating employment and creating new production and innovative activity add to their environmental advantages. The session will aim to present and launch the Report itself.

Converting to the green economy: the new global deal for growth and sustainability

Converting to the green economy is not only one of today's most pressing global challenges; it is also one of the most promising new frontiers for innovation, growth and the rise of a sustainable civilization. The world today needs a collective, coordinated, cohesive and convergent effort embracing all countries. The United Nations system provides the most likely framework in which such an approach for thedevelopment of a global green economy can succeed.

The top decision-makers who will speak at the official opening plenary session will deliver different views towards a shared vision: how climate change can be transformed from one of mankind's biggest perils into one of humanity's most promising and transforming challenges.

Urbanization: part of the problem, part of the solution

The fast pace of urbanization in emerging and developing countries is becoming one of the most massive and pressing problems for climate change mitigation, development, and the transition to a greener economy.

Cities are big energy consumers, big emitters, big polluters – but also the laboratories of our future way of life and places where eco-solutions are concentrated, tested and spread. Soon most of the world's population will be living in urban areas. Cities already use 75 % of the world's energy output and emit 75 % of greenhouse gases. Urbanization levels are of 80% in developed countries and of 50 % in many developing ones.

Thus demographic growth and urbanization are critical energy and environmental challenges. At the same time, because of their scientific and human resources and financing capabilities; cities are incubators of efficient responses, many of them applicable also in other types of habitats. Therefore, inventing eco-friendly and sustainable cities will have a tremendous impact on climate change mitigation, energy efficiency, industrial production, transportation, consumer behavior and social interactions. In other words: a new civilization. This session will present major achievements and pilot-projects which are inventing the sustainable city of tomorrow. It will focus on the evolutions of urban living in emerging countries and revolutionary urban planning trends tested in megacities as well as in futuristic zero-carbon communities.

International Investment in Infrastructure & Climate: The present, the way forwards

Beyond the rhetoric and good intentions of the global debate over climate change lies the real world and difficult work of bringing to fruition the projects needed to address its effects on human habitats and the way we live. Most climate and environmental projects start in the public sector – principally city and regional governments, who must provide their citizens with new infrastructure and social services adapted to and addressing climate change: more public transportation, better waste management, more clean water, more electricity… All of this new infrastructure must be more sustainable and energy efficient than yesterday's systems.

Few governments have the budget to build what needs to be built, so private investment must fill the gap if these projects are ever to be built. However, in the current volatile markets and flight to less-risky investments by institutions everywhere, preparing projects to attract investment has become more complex. Howcan these parties be brought together so that projects find the funding they need, and investors can achieve the reduced risk exposure they seek - all so that more and better infrastructure gets built? This session will discuss the current international situation in this regard and outline a way forward to close this gap.

Finding the optimal energy mix for the 21st century

A climate-smart world needs an optimal energy mix, which itself requires a sustainable and responsible capitalism. In the post-Kyoto paradigm all countries must get out from entrenched traditional positions and rhetoric about the sharing of the burden of both the historical environmental debt of most developed countries and the new responsibilities of emerging powers. Instead, all must focus in a cooperative spirit on how to optimize energy efficiency; ensure the security of supplies and the safety of facilities; increase affordability of power and foster a low-carbon growth. Whatever way we look at this issue, the ultimate objectives remain the same: to reduce the transformation waste and the environmental impacts of energy production and distribution; to disseminate globally green technologies; to change how humans behave in their ecosphere.