Greening the Economy

In the past 10 years, Brazil has undeniably gone through a remarkable process of transformation. The international community sees Brazil as success story. This collection of articles addresses the discrepancy between the perception of Brazil abroad and at home where NGOs and social movements have been criticizing the Brazilian development model.

At Rio+20, the concept of the "green economy" focuses on industrial production from biomass as one way to overcome fossil fuel dependency. The push for a bio-based economy comes with a call for market-based mechanisms for the financialization of the Earth’s natural processes, re-branded as ‘ecosystem services’, which also encourage land and water grabs.

The urgent need to address climate change, the concerns of depleting fossil fuel reserves, volatile global oil prices and continued economic crisis amongst other reasons have put energy at the center of public policy debates. While the discussions are centered around addressing energy security, often focused primarily around electricity generation, the more immediate energy crisis is in creating equitable energy access and eradicating energy poverty.

In a time of economic hardship, dangerous climate change, and growing demand for reliable and cleaner sources of energy, global fossil fuel subsidies for production and consumption remain staggeringly high; however, momentum for subsidy reform is growing internationally. Greater transparency and equity need to be at the heart of such reforms, argues this report.

The Green Deal Nigeria study commissioned by the Heinrich Böll Foundation focuses on the potential for a greener Nigeria and is being launched as the country prepares for the 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit. The study provides an overview and practical examples of how to green Nigeria before 2020 and explains the long-term measures that Nigeria needs to take today to make the economy grow beyond oil.

The World Bank's May 2012 volume on "Inclusive Green Growth" has some positive solutions to offer, but falls short in several crucial ways: the lack of emphasis on poverty reduction, equality and human rights; an uncritical regard for market mechanisms to govern asset markets, and a view of infrastructure as the “heart of green growth,” among other things.

The chemical industry in Germany plays a key role in the economy as a whole and the country's international competitiveness. It provides more than 290,000 well paying jobs. The capacity of the chemical industry for innovation is crucial for finding solutions to some of the major challenges of our time such as climate change and the resource crisis: chemicals can help to insulate buildings, generate solar power, build cleaner cars and increase material efficiency.

Since 2002, the world community has been struggling to formulate a framework for sustainable consumption and production. In this paper, "Preventing Wall-E", Victoria Floor describes the struggle, the high stakes and the importance of a Rio +20 agreement.

In this essay, the president of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, Barbara Unmuessig, critically reflects on the opportunities for and the shortcomings of the concept of a "Green Economy" to influence economic policy making globally, its relationship to the paradigm of sustainable development and the need to rethink our understanding and focus on growth.

Germany has seen record investments in solar energy. Thus, coal and nuclear utilities are calling for an end to solar incentives. They might be able to delay the boom of solar power. But it is too late to stop it altogether, argues Volker Quaschning in this article.