News

March 2018, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia - 

What do you think is the most popular course among architecture students at the Mongolian University of Science and Technology (MUST)? It’s a course on green buildings.

“Even former students are asking us if they can take the course,” says B. Munkhbayar, a Senior Lecturer at MUST.

The interest in the course reflects a broader shift in the building sector in Mongolia where energy efficient buildings are more and more in demand.

“Currently, the manufacturing and construction sectors consume 60 percent of total electricity and 24 percent of the heat. The building heat loss is about 30 percent – we want to change this,” says L. Batjargal, Director of Policy and Planning at the Ministry of Construction and Urban Development (MCUD).

The National Green Development Policy sets a target for reducing heat loss through buildings by 20 percent by 2020 and by 40 percent by 2030. To achieve this, MCUD is working on a green building code and rating system and is revamping its construction sector policy, with support by PAGE, the International Finance Cooperation (IFC) and a Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) project.

Constant Van Aerschot, who advises the Government on the new construction sector policy on behalf of PAGE highlights: “It is important to not only think about individual buildings but also about energy supply and urban planning as a whole.”

Arab Hoballah, Team Leader, SWITCH-Asia SCP Facility adds: “The goal needs to be sustainable housing and resource efficient cities, considering relevant consumption and production patterns, if we want to have a transformative impact.”

A new morning for Mongolian cities? The Government is promoting more resource-efficient and inclusive urban development.

Back to B. Munkhbayar and the education sector. The green building course offered by MUST is not the only green-economy related course run by Mongolian universities.

With support from PAGE, the National University of Mongolia (NUM), the Mongolian University of Life Sciences (MULS) and the University of Finance and Economics (UFE) are developing a new undergraduate course on green economy and macro-economic modelling, to be launched in 2018. A new course on sustainable finance is planned to be piloted next year, in partnership with the Mongolian Sustainable Finance Association (MSFA), IFC and PAGE.

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Mongolian universities are joining forces to green their operations and educational offer.

“When I first came to Mongolia in 2015, the higher education sector was not yet much involved in the green and sustainable development agenda. There were a few initiatives but I think the momentum created over the past two to three years is quite remarkable,” says Amrei Horstbrink, a Green Development Specialist at the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).

Beyond the launch of new courses, universities are joining forces to green their campuses and are planning to work on a submission to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Furthermore, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports is focusing the new higher education policy on sustainable development to encourage universities to green their teaching and operations. S. Munkhbat, Adviser to the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports points out: “We are aiming to increase investments into higher education to contribute to a shift towards sustainable development”.

If university students are becoming leaders in society they need to fully integrate the concept of sustainable development. And this is not just as a matter of principle, as Cristina Martinez from the International Labor Organization (ILO) highlights: “We estimate that by 2030, 14 million jobs will be created in climate change mitigation in Asia – most of them for high skilled labor, i.e. both university and vocational education graduates.”

By greening their educational offer, the Mongolian universities are not only preparing their students to be better citizens but also to be competitive in a changing labor market.

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PAGE started its engagement in Mongolia in 2013, supporting the development of the National Green Development Policy which was approved by Parliament in 2014. Over the past four and a half years, PAGE has supported Mongolia in advancing its green development agenda with evidence-based policy appraisal using system dynamics modelling, analysis of different options for implementation of the NGDP, and support for policy development and reform in specific sectors and thematic areas, such as green construction, sustainable public procurement, green economy learning, sustainable finance, waste management and trade. In the week of 12 March 2018, a series of 10 meetings and workshops took place to advance technical work under the different thematic workstreams and to discuss with national and international partners how to ensure sustainability of the work supported by PAGE.

15 March 2018, Geneva, Switzerland – Many governments face the triple challenge of reducing environmental risks, while fostering economic growth and reducing poverty. Green fiscal reform (GFR) as a policy approach can improve fiscal consolidation, spur innovation, and help identify smarter ways for government taxation and spending.

By setting appropriate economic incentives and price signals, green fiscal policies can help shift consumption patterns and drive private investments in human, natural, social and clean-produced capital. For example, fossil fuel subsidies amount globally to 548 billion USD (IEA, 2013) and their reduction would unlock funding for investments in clean industries, renewable energy, and poverty reduction.

To meet the learning needs and build capacities of national stakeholders, Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) has developed this e-learning course on green fiscal reform. The interactive and practice-oriented course seeks to provide interested participants from government, business, civil society and academia with an introduction to various approaches and policy instruments for reforming government spending and revenue generation with the goal of supporting the transition to a green economy. The course will take place from 9 April to 1 June 2018.

At the end of the course, participants are given the opportunity to apply their newly acquired knowledge to a real-life situation in a specific country, region or sector by developing an action plan. The action plans are peer-reviewed by participants, as well as by the course moderator. While preparing a case study, participants identify a concrete problem context and relevant issues and define appropriate measures, resources and means of implementation.

A limited number of fellowships are available for eligible candidates. The application process and eligibility criteria are outlined in this note. The fellowship application deadline is 26 March 2018.

To register, please visit the course catalogue or check the course flyer.

For more information, please contact: page@unitar.org

2 March 2018, Georgetown, Guyana -- The Partnership for Action on Green Economy held a mission to Guyana, which joined PAGE in March 2017, to support the country’s efforts to transition to an inclusive green economy through the creation of a Green State Development Policy (GSDP).

The government of Guyana’s green development policy will lay the foundations for inclusive green economic growth, provide a roadmap for achieving sustainable development goals and related targets, and outline a long-term vision for a prosperous and equitable future. PAGE is providing analytical and technical support to help develop and execute this strategy.

The objectives of the mission, which took place from 26 February- 2 March, included work on advancing macroeconomic modelling, a Green Conversation on “PAGE: Green jobs and Sustainable Business”, green industry assessment, as well as discussions with the Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs on Guyana’s agricultural, forestry, energy and infrastructure sectors.

The mission demonstrated that partners across Guyana are well on their way to establishing an inclusive green economy, and that the forthcoming Green State Development Strategy will lay strong foundations to build a prosperous and equitable Guyana. PAGE, in collaboration with the Government of Guyana and a broad range of national partners will continue to support the advancement of these efforts and the flourishing of a green and inclusive economy.  

26 February 2017, Geneva, Switzerland - In China, about half a million electric motors were sold in 2017, and over 90 per cent of them were manufactured by Chinese companies. Electric mobility is booming in China. Urban pollution from cars with combustion engines is a major cause of death in China, and the Chinese government has realized the opportunities, both in terms of human health and the economy, of developing a competitive advantage in the mobility market of the future. To do this, they have implemented a consistent set of policies to reach ambitious targets: producing 2 million hybrid and electric vehicles and claiming 20 per cent of the electric vehicle market by 2020.

Generous purchase incentives and dedicated research programmes have helped to kick-start the industry. To foster demand, public fleets, including buses and taxis, were replaced by electric vehicles. Additionally, restrictions on petrol motorcycles were enacted in 29 cities. After experiencing difficulties in breaking into a crowded international automotive market, these measures have helped China to successfully bypass the crowd to become a leader in electric vehicle technology. The measures implemented by the Chinese government are examples of green industrial policies – policies that aim to protect the  environment while boosting economic competitiveness.

According to Tilman Altenburg, co-editor of “Green Industrial Policy: Concept, Policies, Country Experiences”, green industrial policies, such as the Chinese push for e-mobility, are needed, because market forces alone cannot bring about the necessary change quickly enough to mitigate the existential threats arising from climate change. His comments took place on February 22, as policy makers and practitioners gathered at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, to discuss the role of green industrial policy as an instrument of transformative change.

The panel discussion, jointly hosted by the Partnership of Action on Green Economy (PAGE) and the Centre for International Environmental Studies (CIES) of the Graduate Institute, was held as part of a launch event for three major resources that PAGE has developed on green industrial policy. While, as Frank Van Rompaey, Head of the UNIDO Office in Geneva pointed out, “there is no policy blueprint for this transformation” that fits all countries, these resources can form a starting point from which governments are able to develop their own green industrial policy priorities and strategies. For example, in Costa Rica, the primary challenge was a lack of domestic energy production. As the Ambassador to the WTO from Costa Rica, Álvaro Cedeño Molinari explained, by substituting energy imports with domestic, renewable electricity generation, Costa Rica was able to reduce its vulnerability to fluctuating energy markets while also cutting emissions.

The panel addressed the potential difficulties in implementing green industrial policies while also adhering to international trade obligations. Trade is highly regulated in international law and various widely used green industrial policy tools, such as local content requirements, can be problematic under international trade law. As Jorge E. Viñuales, author of “Green Industrial Policy and Trade: A Toolbox”, explained, the trade architecture was not built with environmental conservation in mind and thus leaves various green industrial policies in a grey area.

As Chinese companies set out to conquer the international electric vehicle market, green industrial policies, including those related to trade, are a key tool for countries wishing to leapfrog existing technologies to green industries and carve out their competitive advantage for the economy of tomorrow.

More information on China’s e-mobility transformation can be found in Chapter 12 of Green Industrial Policies: Concept, Policies, Country Experiences, available here.

22 February 2018, Dakar, Senegal – Senegal has established a National Platform on the Green Economy aimed at stimulating green growth and development. 

The multi-stakeholder platform will be a forum for dialogue, information sharing and coordinating action on issues such as green financing, climate change, green jobs, and the sustainable exploitation of the country’s oil and gas resources.

The announcement came during the Green Economy Days event in Dakar (February 20-21) organized by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development in collaboration with the Institute of Environmental Sciences (ISE) and the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE).

Participants from the Senegalese government, local authorities, civil society, workers’ and employers’ organizations, and academic institutions focused on the following issues and made several recommendations during the event:

By Verena Balke, UN Environment’s Resources and Markets Branch

7 February 2018, Geneva, Switzerland - When China decided to ban imports of plastic waste at the end of last year, it left major exporters of plastic waste unprepared. According to the Worldwatch Institute, the average North American or European consumes 100 kilograms of plastic every year. Globally, only 14 per cent of our plastic waste is being recycled. Current recycling machines are unable to separate plastics into reusable forms, so plastic waste has previously been pressed into bales and sent to China, where recyclable plastic was manually picked and reused.

The imports of plastic waste have had disastrous impacts on the environment and people’s health in China. Batches were often contaminated with hazardous materials, such as medical trash, endangering workers in the recycling facilities.

Approximately 8 million tons of waste, the amount China imported in 2016, now needs to be processed somewhere else. This could mean shifting the waste to neighbouring countries, but less developed treatment industries give rise to a growing informal recycling sector and its related environmental and social damages. For now, the United Kingdom and the United States have turned to landfilling and incineration to rid themselves of their growing piles of plastic waste, meaning that resources are not only being wasted, but are also polluting air and land.

China’s policy decision should not mean that the “problem” of plastic waste is relocated to other countries or buried on landfill sites. Instead, this moment should be seen as a trigger-point to develop sustainable plastic waste management practices and boost recycling rates in waste exporting countries.

Green industrial policies allow governments to leverage this opportunity to cut off plastic waste where it starts. Plastic waste regulations show how green industrial policy can directly impact our daily lives. But it is only one piece in a set of different policies that can help transform our economies into drivers of sustainability. While research into the field of green industrial policy is still relatively limited, UN Environment and the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) are at the forefront of delivering the data, the theoretical information and concrete advice to policymakers, enabling them to pilot this transformation in their countries.

On 22 February, PAGE is hosting an event on green industrial policy for transformative change, discussing the links between theory and practice. The event will launch the trilogy of PAGE publications on green industrial policy: “Practitioner's Guide to Strategic Green Industrial Policy”, “Green Industrial Policy: Concept, Policies, Country Experiences” and “Green Industrial Policy & Trade: A Tool-Box”.

For more information and to register for the event, please click here.