Financial Turmoil Could Jump Start New Green Era: UN

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Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) feels the current global market crisis could provide an opportunity for the world financial system to reconstruct itself to promote “green” growth.

“Governments now have an opportunity to create and enforce policy which stimulates competition to fund clean industry,” de Boer said.

The demand for energy worldwide is expected by surge more than 50 per cent by 2030, he said, requiring a $22 trillion investment – half of that in developing nations – in energy supply infrastructure. Massive increases in greenhouse gas emissions would result unless those funds are earmarked for clean energy, he stressed.

For the first time since last December’s landmark UN Climate Change Conference in Bali,, dozens of environment ministers will meet next week before the next set of talks in the Polish city of Poznan begin in December.

The Poznan conference will be crucial since it will be the first time that a text, for a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol, will be discussed, Mr. de Boer said.

“It will be very important, in that context, that ministers focus their attention on a shared vision of cooperative action,” he noted.

There has been much talk regarding what developed and developing countries must do to slash emissions but little emphasis has been placed on the infrastructure and resources that poorer nations require.