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Green Economy Becomes Key as UN Poverty Goal Slips, Report Says
2010-09-20 16:04:21.879 GMT
By Kim Chipman
Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Shifting to a green economy will
become key in the United Nations' bid to raise worldwide living
standards as prospects dim for cutting poverty in half by 2015,
according to a UN report.
Environmental challenges left unresolved, such as
protecting coral reefs, ensuring safe drinking water and
fighting deforestation, will endanger the ability of future
generations to thrive, according to the study released today for
policy makers by the UN Environment Program.
Leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and French
President Nicolas Sarkozy will meet in New York this week during
the UN General Assembly session to review the UN's Millennium
Development Goals, a 15-year plan to halve poverty across the
world by 2015.
"It is likely that achieving all the MDGs by 2015 will be
missed," Achim Steiner, environmental program executive
director, said today in a statement. "The responses so far have
been embedded in a 20th century approach to a new century's
challenges."
Policy makers should proceed with actions aimed at weaning
nations away from fossil fuels such as oil and coal and
encouraging development of a clean-energy economy, according to
the study.
"There is rapidly growing evidence that accelerating a
transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient, employment-
generating green economy may not only be the key to meeting
sustainability challenges of the 21st century, but also provide
a considerable contribution to meeting other" development
goals, Steiner said.
Strategies to help reach the goal of reducing poverty
include investments in Costa Rica to expand protected areas and
national parks to more than 25 percent of the nation's land
area. The effort has helped the economy by spurring a boom in
eco-tourism, according to the report.
For Related News and Information:
For news about the United Nations: NI UN BN <GO>
Economic data: ECO <GO>
Government relief programs: GGRP <GO>
U.S. economic forecasts: ECFC <GO>
--Editors: Steve Geimann, Larry Liebert
To contact the reporter on this story:
Kim Chipman in New York at +1-202-624-1927 or
kchipman@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Larry Liebert at +1-202-624-1936 or
LLiebert@bloomberg.net.
