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February 17, 2009

UN Calls for “Global Green New Deal”
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The United Nations is calling on rich nations to forge a “Global Green
New Deal” that puts the environment, climate change and poverty
reduction at the heart of efforts to reboot the world economy. At a
meeting in Kenya, the United Nations Environment Program said Leaders
from the Group of 20 nations should commit at least one percent of gross
domestic product over the next two years to slashing carbon emissions.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the UNEP: “Our meeting this year
takes place against the backdrop of the most serious economic recession
in a generation, some would say perhaps even longer. The traditional
response to economic recession when addressing environmental issues is
that essentially economic recession is a detraction from attention to
environmental imperatives to act.”

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki also spoke at the UN meeting in Nairobi.

Mwai Kibaki: “Environmental degradation continues to undermine the
prospects of fighting poverty and the realization of high economic
growth and sustainable development, particularly in many developing
countries.”



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