“Green growth is not the magic carpet that some think it is,” Edenhofer says. “However, it is a necessary complement of international climate policy. It can help pave the way towards a sustainable world economy – which might be a rocky road.” Edenhofer is vice director and chief economist of the Potsdam Institute (PIK). In addition to this, he is co-chair of the IPCC’s working group on climate change mitigation as well as director of the Mercator Research Institute for Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC). He holds a professorship at the Technical University Berlin.
The platform defines green growth as “fostering economic growth and development, while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies. It focuses on the synergies and tradeoffs between the environmental and economic pillars of sustainable development.” According to the initiators, the next five to ten years will present major opportunities to further incorporate environmental and economic sustainability considerations in, for example, the huge investments in infrastructure that will be made across the developing world.
