Hall of shame: 9 countries missing the chance of a green recovery

(Climate Home News, 11 Mar 2021) The world’s governments are failing to “build back better” from the Covid-19 economic slump, the UN Environment Programme warned in a report published on Thursday.

Its analysts classified just 18% ($341 billion) of national recovery spending pledges as green. Including European Commission spending brings the figure up to $697bn.

Oxford University environmental economics professor Cameron Hepburn said the report “made sure that countries can be compared and frankly shamed if necessary… we need to call out countries which aren’t doing what they need to be doing in their own best interests”.

The report authors accepted that “some dirty rescue-type expenditure may have been necessary to ensure that lives and livelihoods were saved” – but said these bailouts should have had green strings attached.

The report is critical of a lack of spending on re-training, at a time many people were laid off from sectors like oil and gas. This was minimal and “almost exclusively” non-green. Joy Kim from the UN Environment Programme said this was “short-sighted”.

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Climate Home News, 11 Mar 2021: Hall of shame: 9 countries missing the chance of a green recovery