Green+ Malaysia's Premier Eco-friendly, Sustainable and Green Business Magazine

GOING GREEN
The Global Green
Economy Index 2014
Credit: © Shutterstock
The Global Green Economy
Index is now onto its 4th biennial
edition of separating the
cabbages from the clowns.
Green performance entails an
awful lot of renewable energy
or eating cabbage, while the
clowns think they can still get
away with uneconomical cars
and coal-fired power stations.
Top of course are the
Scandinavians, whose
policies have been green for
generations, although an
awful lot of oil and gas have
powered Norway’s expensive
conversion to the green side.
Germany naturally gets the
perception award for being
so much in the forefront
of renewable energy and
showing European leadership
in the necessary economic
and environmental change.
Behind Sweden and
Norway, the 3rd spot for
performance goes for first
time entrants, Costa Rica,
whose efforts, especially in
sustainable building, are only
helped a little by their small
size. Large nations do have
a problem with the absolute
expense of change. Of the
60 countries and 70 cities
surveyed, larger nations such
as China, Poland and lastly,
Mongolia bring up the rear.
Many countries are not
perceived as being green
enough or they appear much
more green than they really
are. The African countries of
Ethiopia, Mauritius, Rwanda
and Zambia deserve credit for
becoming very environmentally
friendly.
Cities that have been
poor performers long ago,
now rank highly. Being
rich enough to alter your
infrastructure is also a
help. With London and its
eco-buildings 5th and New
York 7th, only the obvious
ones such as Copenhagen
and Amsterdam beat them.
The nicest cities seem to be
all green, such as, in order,
Stockholm, Vancouver, Berlin
and Singapore, not forgetting
Oslo in 10th.
Concern has to be
expressed about developed
countries that have fallen
behind. Australia, Japan,
the Netherlands and the US
perform poorly compared
to other similar countries.
This group seem to class
themselves as fairly green,
but this just doesn’t add up
in reality Likewise, the UK is
inconsistent and therefore
In Paris, they have their own ideas about how green a building or
a city should be. France performs very well compared to some
neighbours in this survey, but its perceptions of itself are less good!
never excels in the survey,
unlike many other European
countries that exceed even
their own green perception
of themselves. Opposite to
the UK, France outranks it on
performance but sees itself
as much less green than
the UK! In similar fashion,
Colombia, Chile and Peru are
imperceptibly green on the
outside, but are blossoming
on the inside!
Buildings are often the
key to “green-ness”, as their
emissions are prominent
among polluting sources.
So we can judge a nation’s
performance on climate,
energy and their environment
almost with only a
sustainability of building
report. The Dual Citizen LLC
consultancy produce the GGEI
report from the US. – www.
earthtimes.org
Observatory) to 860 extinct species
since the dodo in 1662. The newspaper
covering this epic event is The Times
with King of the Ants.
The Director General is more diplomatic
when she states that the Aichi
Biodiversity Targets are unlikely to
be attained in 2020. She is simply not
optimistic that commitments can be
met. She herself is stepping down this
year - hopefully not retiring yet, either!
Her organisation is fighting poachers
in particular but politicians too.
Her agreement with the professor is
reasonable to assume. It isn’t about the
love of birds and butterflies; it’s about
our survival. We need to behave better
towards our planet and behave better
towards each other.
In other words, economic growth is
useless if all the forests are gone. They
are needed alive and still standing, as
habitats and food sources, just as the
marine forests are! With only 25% of
protected areas managed at all well and
half of our most biodiverse sites totally
unprotected, the pessimism she feels is
reasonable.
Between $45bn and $76bn will be
needed just to manage the poachers
(and the politicians), but this is only 2.5%
of global military spending. It is an old
argument that never worked, but it’s
always worth mentioning.
Of the IUCN Red List’s 73,686 species,
22,103 are classed as threatened. With
EO. Wilson adding the extinct 860, that
leaves a “helluvalot” more work to do for
those of us remaining. His 50 years of
earnest and thoughtful work have left
him believing technology will not rescue
us from the mess we have created.
Our emotions and our institutions
are ill-fitted to the task of changing
the world around. We must save the
environment but new technologies are
the only route by which the organisms
and their habitats can provide us with a
healthy biosphere.
Whoever has the better argument,
we certainly need them both. The
people who make up this world are
unfortunately responsible for the other
species and the whole biosphere. It is up
to those with this knowledge and this
experience to lead us to new conclusions
about action. And I am sorry, time
is up for us all, given the warmings, the
droughts, the floods and the tears. –
www.earthtimes.org
green+.2014, november-december 63