$76 Trillion to Engineer a Green Economy?
Nicolas Loris
The Foundry
Heritage.org
7/14/2011
A new report from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs demonstrates that the U.N. has no business meddling in economic or social issues.
In a recently released World Economic and Social Survey entitled “The Great Green Technological Transformation,” the U.N. says our governments need to spend $1.9 trillion a year for 40 years in order to successfully transition to a global green economy. That’s a $76 trillion price tag for the green initiative, an initiative that won’t bring about economic prosperity nor improve our environmental well being.
Let’s take a step back to demonstrate the U.N.’s line of thinking. The U.N. has concerns that the earth is on course for disaster and in its overview of the survey lays out three possible solutions.
Solution 1: “One option for achieving this would be to limit income growth, as it would also, given existing production methods, limit the growth of resource use, waste and pollutants. However, doing so would complicate efforts to meet the development objective and would thus not be in the interest of developing countries, which are home to the vast majority of the world’s population.”
It’s safe to say that limiting income growth is not in the interest of any country and that doing so would harm our ability to protect and care for the environment. Not only do countries with higher income per capita and greater economic freedom have better environmental records, but they’re also better equipped to handle natural disasters. See Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Solution 2: “Reducing population growth could be another option; but this could be achieved more effectively by improving living standards.”
Population control is a popular topic for those who advocate for sustainable development, but it is not the cause of poverty. Further, improving living standards in the second solution runs contradictory to limiting income growth proposed in the first…
The article continues at The Foundry
