On October 12, Resources for the Future hosted the first meeting of the Green Economies Dialogue project, an initiative of the United States Council Foundation, USCIB and a host of partner organizations and companies.
The goal of this and other GED meetings is to foster discussion of green economy topics among business, government, inter-governmental bodies and other stakeholders, with a focus on international cooperative measures and market-based solutions that could take green growth to the next level.
Future dialogue sessions are planned for Paris (November 14, hosted by the OECD), Tokyo and Sao Paolo. Research on a variety of green economy topics is being commissioned, and will be published in the journal Energy Economics in the lead-up to the Rio+20 summit in June 2012.
The Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD, part of USCIB’s global network, is playing an important role in organizing the dialogues.
At the Washington dialogue, government, business representatives and NGO representatives heard from economists and academics who are reviewing experiences, possibilities and unknowns embedded in the pursuit of a green economy. Participants sought to better understand one another’s perspectives on how economic and environmental policy approaches can be practical in North America, and meaningfully pursued in international marketplaces and regulatory frameworks.
The synergy of economic and environmental policy has been a common theme of the work of our organizations, and we appreciated the diversity of views and ideas presented in the course of the meeting. It became clear that every participant in the meeting brought a unique vision of green growth, and all were seized both by the urgency of the challenges and the long-term nature of the tasks ahead.
Phil Sharp, President, Resources for the Future
Peter M. Robinson, President and CEO, United States Council for International Business
Participants shared U.S. experiences, and looked ahead to how resources could be deployed most effectively to speed the evolution to greener economic growth that is meaningful both in the U.S. and globally.
More information on the Washington and other dialogues, as well as a host of other pertinent resources, will be available shortly on a new Green Economies Dialogue website.
Staff contact: Norine Kennedy
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