The second day of DPI NGO opened with a roundtable on Green
Economy and Poverty Eradication. In particular, the roundtable focussed on the
green economy through the lens of climate change, and what this means for
poverty eradication and economic growth in both the global north and the global
south.

The first speaker was Surveyor Efik, from the Nigerian
National Inter-Ministerial Committee on Climate Change. It is from him that
today’s summary gets its title. He spoke about the dangers of continuing
business as usual, the so called “brown economy”, and the urgent need to pursue
green economy.

In Mr Efik’s view, the primary purpose of the green economy
is to assist countries in dealing with and mitigating climate change. He was clear
that ‘going green’ is not anti-growth or anti-industry. The green economy can
be, and is, pro-job, pro-green and pro-growth. In light of the comments from
Achim Steiner yesterday about the need for on-going growth to meet the needs of
the growing population, this was a timely statement.

He also raised the challenging question of how the benefits
of brown growth, enjoyed by so many of the world’s richest countries, can be
shared with those unable to embark on such growth patterns. Fundamental to this
is the concept of the "global commons" – the equitable sharing of resources and understanding that we all exist in a shared space. Surveyor
Efik concluded by proposing that the decade 2012 – 2022 be a formal UN decade of the
green economy.

Bruce Crowther, representing fair trade towns and FIG Tree,
summarised the growth of the fair trade town movement. He drew attention to the environmental
standards, alongside social standards, that are inherent to the fair trade
mark. He described the work of Garstang in the UK in becoming the world’s first
fair trade town and the importance of local civil society support. This
resonated with the Soroptimist International delegation as the SI club in
Garstang were key local actors in this campaign. The work of Ruth Bruce and the
rest of the local Soroptimists was acknowledged. Mr Crowther finished his
presentation by summarising what he feels sustainable development is:

Sustainable Development = Environment + People

Daniel Mittler from Greenpeace International returned to
theme of green economy arguing that the green economy should not be seen as
bridge, but as an end point. A new economic paradigm is required which moves
economics away from the ‘business as usual’ brown economy and towards green
economy.

Governments may have failed to deliver on agenda 21, but the
responsibility does not exclusively rest with politicians. In many instances,
it is international and national corporations that have contributed to, or even driven, failure.  These corporations are compromising the green economy transition, according to
Greenpeace. Civil Society need to lobby these corporations in the run up to
Rio+20 as corporations are significant actors, often outside of the control of
states and the electorate. This supported the point made during the first day
of discussions where it was argued that voluntary guidelines are not sufficient
if we are to make the transition to green economy. Read the news story from yesterday here.

The challenge of how to (re)distribute the benefits of brown
growth, incentivising green growth whilst supporting developing economies was
picked up again by the UN Development Programme. They came to give a lunch time
session on the forthcoming 2011 Human Development Report: “Sustainability and
Equity” (published November 2011).

This brief session highlighted the fragility of progress
achieved so far in terms of human development. The progress achieved so far is
under threat due to the fact that current patterns of consumption are not
sustainable. In order to overcome this challenge, it is important that states,
business and civil society recognise that it is not the quantity of growth that
matters but the quality.

It is crucial that a path is found for developing economies
which cannot pursue the ‘traditional’ resource intense pattern of growth and
development. An equally big challenge is to encourage countries which have been
able to take advantage of resource intense growth to ‘green’ their assets and
switch to a more sustainable pattern of growth and production.