Mar
11
My study on the European Green Collar Economy
March 11, 2009 | 1 Comment
The recently established political foundation of the European Greens (GEF) has asked me to prepare a meta-study on the creation of a European Green Collar Economy. Last week my study was presented at a very interesting 274263.homepage_follow_up_green_new_deal_confer {at} en(.)htm" target="_blank">workshop on the Green New Deal by the Greens in the European Parliament.
You can find my study here – and it should be available on the GEF website once it goes fully online later this month.
In light of the discussions about a Green New Deal (GND) the Green European Foundation (GEF) was curious to find out about the job potential of an accelerated green investment programme. Based on a (limited) number of scenarios I found, I have put together a number of projections in the study. Moreover, I am discussing to what extent a GND as a spending programme makes sense – and in what way it makes most sense (“shovel-readiness”). So far I thought that the ongoing debate in Green circlues about a Green New Deal was loosing momentum with the passage of the massive stimulus packages in the US, South Korea, China, Europe and other countries. Most of these include specific and often considerable amounts of money target particular at the Green Collar Economy and commentators agree that South Korea has probably the most effective one in terms of its low-carbon impact. But by now I am not so sure about the timing of the economic take-off anymore. The longer the current stagnation is going on, the likelier further stimulus packages become over summer and autumn. My hope would be that they take the lessons from the first packages and put greater emphasis on truly green effects. This might be particularly helpful to motivate a good outcome at the Copenhagen climate summit in December. Moreover, I also mention in the study, that more research is quickly needed on the usefulness of green investments as part of countercyclical spending and stimulus packages.
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