Multi-year Expert Meeting on Enhancing the Enabling Economic Environment at All Levels in Support of Inclusive and Sustainable Development, and the Promotion of Economic Integration and Cooperation

Transitioning to a clean energy growth model: Challenges, opportunities and solutions

[Video recording]
 

Excellencies,

Distinguished delegates and experts,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure to welcome you to this expert meeting which focuses on a crucial issue of this time: Challenges, opportunities and solutions for transitioning to a clean energy growth model.

The global economy is at a crossroads.

Diverging growth paths, widening inequalities, growing market concentration and mounting debt burdens cast shadows on the future. The prospects of meeting the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 are fading amid the cascading crises.

In parallel, climate change is fast becoming one of the most serious global challenges. The effects of climate change are reaching all corners of the globe. Loss and damage due to the impacts of climate change are a reality for an increasing number of countries and communities. And yet, with current policies, the world is on a path to reach an average temperature of around 2.7 degree Celsius above the pre-industrial era by the end of this century.

To change path, we must shift away from an unsustainable economic model centered around fossil fuels.

Our ability to succeed will depend crucially on adopting a strategic industrial policy approach: An approach which accelerates the speed of the energy transition and industrial restructuring, redirects innovation towards sustainable prosperity, and effectively “decouples” economic growth from excessive use of natural resources and adverse environmental impacts.

The international community signaled a path through the adoption of an ambitious and multi-dimensional development agenda: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement. Achieving these agenda requires a new development model that provides prosperity for all, but within the planetary boundaries.

At the core of that model is a fundamental socio-economic transformation based on decarbonizing economies, a greater attention to distributional issues, and a massive investment, both public and private, in public goods.

I would like to share with you three main points from our work about how to conceptualize the link between climate and development challenges:

First, only by working together we will be able to successfully respond to climate change. It is a global problem, which requires global collaboration.

Second, we need a just transition. Almost sixty percent of greenhouse gas emissions since 1750 have come from today’s developed countries. These countries have thus a historical responsibility. A ‘just transition’ implies a policy framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that simultaneously tackles inequalities, ensures a fair distribution of transition costs, and guarantees that the gains from the transition are widely shared. It requires that developed countries support developing countries in achieving their climate and development goals.

And third, the existing global economic, and in particular financial architecture is ill suited for the challenges we face. We need to reform it, very much in line with the topic of this expert meeting: Enhancing the enabling economic environment in support of inclusive and sustainable development.

We at UNCTAD have extended work to include climate issues in our research and analysis and presented it in several publications. For instance: The Trade and Development Report 2021 on financing a global green new deal, the TDR 2021 on climate adaptation and structural transformation, the Least Developed Countries Report 2022 on low-carbon transition, the Technology and Innovation Report 2023 on technological opportunities for a low-carbon world, and most recently the Commodities and Development Report 2023 on inclusive diversification and energy transition.

This expert group meeting and the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Financing for Development later this week, allow us to further conceptualize the link between climate and development challenges and to offer policy recommendations to policymakers and the wider audience.

The main objective of the expert meeting is to discuss the transition to a clean energy growth model from the perspective of building industrial capacity in a climate-constrained world. We will have four sessions: The first focuses on the global aspects of transitioning to a clean energy growth model; the second on domestic challenges in green structural transformation; the third on regional aspects, and the last on the link between green industrial policy and financing the green transition.

These are big issues which require the best of expertise: You.

I thank you for sharing your experience and insights to enable us finding solutions for the energy transition that we all need.