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 frontier for innovation, growth and the rise of a sustainable civilization.
The picture is clear : the world must try to keep global warming under a 2°C increase to avoid the disastrous consequences of an irreversible trend of the climate change.
And by doing so, we will generate hundreds of billions of investments, revenues and trade flows; while creating tens of millions of new jobs.
In between, there is the daunting task to reinvent our way of life; to structurally change how we produce, transport and consume; and to avoid a too divergent path between industrialized countries, emerging powers and developing or least developed countries.
To succeed, the world needs a new paradigm of governance based on leadership and solidarity, on a voluntary basis. In other words, a PACT.
The rationale of such a pact is that both the threats of climate change and the opportunities of clean and alternative energy technologies require a collective, coordinated, cohesive and convergent effort embracing all countries.
This can only be achieved if political leaders, the business community, researchers and the public opinion are totally aware of, and committed to, the values of multilateralism.
To help promote this green governance pact, based on the triadic interaction of the main stakeholders of energy, environment and development issues, the ENERGY PACT FOUNDATION and UNCTAD have formed a special partnership to organize an annual multilateral conference in Geneva, Switzerland, the world’s capital of conference diplomacy.
This annual conference will highlight how the strengthening of the multilateral approach can best help the world convert to the green economy, with a special focus on emerging powers and on the financing and dissemination of clean / alternative energy technologies.
It will consequently give maximum visibility to the incomparable resources, guidance, expertise, achievements and mobilization power of the main international organizations who are actually contributing to shape the new green global paradigm, such as UNCTAD, UNEP, UNIDO, IEA, WTO, ITC, IRENA, etc…
As a landmark gesture reflecting the leadership role of oil and gas producing countries in fostering the creation and dissemination of clean and alternative energy technologies; political, business, civil society and academic leaders will be invited to draft and sign at a solemn ceremony a “Pact”, which will be named after the city in which it will be launched.
This Pact will recognize the prominent role of the Gulf, Middle East and Central Asia region in building the energy mix of the XXIst century, which will be the foundation for both the new innovative green economy and the new, more humane, green civilization.
By organizing in partnership with UNCTAD this annual conference, and in ensuring a proper follow-up as well as the establishment of a permanent multilateral think-tank, the ENERGY PACT FOUNDATION aims at supporting both the UN-lead ongoing process; and advanced cooperation of stakeholders that can act as building-blocks for a global green governance in the making.
After Cancún and before Rio +20(2012): how best to go ahead?
The world needs now a multilateral green alliance to “inject energy” into climate change mitigation.
The Copenhagen and Cancún climate conferences have demonstrated an unprecedented levelof awareness, interest and mobilization from the global political leadership, the international business community and the world civil society at large.
The ENERGY PACT FOUNDATION / UNCTAD high level Conferences will provide an opportunity to look at the bigger picture and to pose the question “what now, and how to continue”?
The Conferences will offer a platform to a carefully chosen set of personalities from different walks of life and representing given views and interests, to comment on and map signposts for “a road to the future” in the years and decades to come.
It will also serve to broaden the consideration away from fixation with “carbon trading” and “emissions targets”. It will promote, on a voluntary basis, advanced joint cooperative undertakings of the international community in mounting actions and approaches that contribute in a tangible way to the emergence of sustainable and socially equitable, green economies and societies worldwide.
In view of difficulties and problems experienced in the past in approaching the bundle of issues involved, the participants in the Conferences will be invited to address and identify key strategic challenges and obstacles, as well as to set-up doable short to medium-term pilot projects.
Potential topics :
- A more visible and coordinated role for the relevant International Organizations of – and outside – the UN system. Better advocacy of their added-value ; and expertise, policy formulation, financial input.
- The role and place of the EU, the United States and BRIC as key players in the evolving scenario.
- The outstanding issues on the North-South development agenda.
- The implications of widespread underdevelopment, poverty and chronic food crisis.
- Privatization of knowledge and intellectual property disciplines.
- Prevailing and dominant economic and social paradigms.
- The role of the emerging countries in the South, in particular of Brazil, China and India, and of South-South cooperation in following sustainable development paths and evolving appropriate technologies, lifestyles and patterns of production and consumption ; which can serve as examples, and whose successes can be replicated in other parts of the developing world (benchmarking, best practices, capacity-building).
- International taxation, as a means to generate financial resources needed to assist least developed and other developing countries in their efforts to follow sustainable development paths, and also as a means to initiate global public projects in support of sustainable development, e.g. green energy technologies in public domain, agricultural research, free energy entitlements of individual citizens, etc.
- Changing lifestyles and codes of ethical, sustainable conduct for society and its individual members, as an important approach to changing the mindset of public and making it receptive and ready to contribute to global objectives of sustainable development.
- Bolstering the roles and capacities of parliaments, NGO’s and representations of interests to contribute democratically and with transparency to the quest for sustainable development and global climate change objectives.
- State of play of greener energy (renewables, energy efficiency and environmental initiatives).
- Energy security, accessibility and affordability.
- Green business, green finance, and green corporate responsibility: how they will create jobs and develop communities.
- Can we set-up multilateral funds big and diligent enough to disseminate clean energy technologies at the scale and speed needed for the world to address efficiently climate change ?
- Can Sovereign Wealth Funds become leading players in developed and developing countries for financing R&D, industrial diversification and the stimulation of green trade?
- Which are the best incentives for increased scale of investment/channeling appropriate funding towards more sustainable and cleaner energy sources?
- Increasing the role of Islamic finance in the ethical green business.
- How to compensate industrialized countries and multinational corporations who will grant free and open access to clean / alternative energy technologies for the least developed countries?
- State of play of fundamental science and applied research. Prospective assessment. What are the chances of the emergence of major, sudden and disruptive technologies able to have a planet-wide systemic and structural effect?
- Encouraging greener habits and behaviors among peoples belonging to different cultures, while creating a sustainable civilization based on environmental responsibility, eco-solidarity and a global “green citizenship”.
- How Gulf countries are changing the global world energy strategy and will help prepare the post-fossil era?
The ENERGY PACT FOUNDATION / UNCTAD Conferences will bring into focus major viewpoints, and serve to articulate and contrast these. On the basis of views expressed, a set of recommendations will be synthesized and will be made public.
Countries and Organizations (public and private sectors, NGO’s) willing to engage into ambitious advanced cooperation will be invited to sign a “PACT”, a manifesto set to embody the voluntary engagement of major stakeholders wanting to deliver leadership.
The ENERGY PACT CONFERENCES will bring together leading actors from energy, environment and development circles who want, through mutual understanding, cooperative spirit and cohesive action, to demonstrate that climate change can be transformed from one of mankind’s biggest perils into one of humanity’s most promising and transforming challenges.