Finance - the missing piece in green growth puzzle: Achim Steiner

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Achim Steiner, executive director, United Nations Environment Programme. He has headed the organisation since 2006.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, identifies the key requirement for achieving a global green economy and calls for strong political leadership for a successful agreement on climate change in Paris.

Achim Steiner may run the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and its various efforts to tackle climate change, ecosystem loss and promote green growth. But when it comes to solving the world’s challenges, he says the key lies not within the environmental sphere, but outside - in the financial world.

He believes that the global community needs to get the finance sector on board as it is where the money flows to that will determine if the global economy can respond to the sustainability challenge.

Noting that the cost of adapting to climate change could “place a crippling burden on the world economy”, Steiner emphasises that even though governments have pledged more than US$10 billion of finance to help developing countries cope with climate change, more than ten times this amount will be required in the next five years.

In fact, UNEP estimates that up to US$6 trillion a year is needed till 2030 for countries to improve their energy, transport, water, and urban infrastructure. This is why it has made designing greener financial systems a priority. 

The agency launched an initiative called the Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System last year and will work with policymakers and businesses to advance a green financial system in the coming years. Already, there are encouraging signs: The recent growth in green bonds markets is one example, notes the UN leader who has helmed the agency for close to a decade. 

Steiner, who has German and Brazilian citizenship, has dedicated the bulk of his career to environmental causes: Prior to his appointment as UNEP executive director in 2006, Steiner led the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) from 2001 to 2006, and the World Commission on Dams before that.

Read the entire article and the interview with Achim Steiner's here