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United Nations launching green ‘New Deal’
October 13, 2008
A ‘Green New Deal’ can save the world’s economy, says UN
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Sunday, 12 October 2008
Top economists and United Nations leaders are working on a “Green New Deal” to create millions of jobs, revive the world economy, slash poverty and avert environmental disaster, as the financial markets plunge into their deepest crisis since the Great Depression.
The ambitious plan – the start of which will be formally launched in London next week - will call on world leaders, including the new US President, to promote a massive redirection of investment away from the speculation that has caused the bursting “financial and housing bubbles” and into job-creating programmes to restore the natural systems that underpin the world economy.
It aims to convince them that, far from restricting growth, healing the global environment will be a desperately -needed driving force behind it.
The Green Economy Initiative - which will be spearheaded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), headquartered here, and is already being backed by governments – draws its inspiration from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, which ended the 1930s depression and helped set up the world economy for the unprecedented growth of the second half of the 20th century.
Read the UK Guardian.
