OECD Green Growth Strategy turns blind eye to environmental threats

Press Release

OECD Green Growth Strategy turns blind eye to environmental threats

PRESS RELEASE

[25th May 2011, Paris] - The OECD published the Green Growth Strategy Synthesis Report[1] today under a cloud of criticism from NGOs for moving forward with ‘closed eyes to the evidence’ and lacking any clear way of measuring green development.

In a statement sent to economic ministers, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and Greenpeace International called on the OECD to take braver steps and heed the calls for changes to the existing economic growth model.[2]

The report was released at an OECD Ministerial meeting in Paris in front of many of the world’s leading political figures including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

Speaking at the meeting, EEB Secretary General Jeremy Wates expressed concern about the lack of ambition in the Strategy:

“Growth which may be called green must fully respect ecological constraints. The OECD’s Green Growth Strategy fails to propose solutions that recognise we have already exceeded those constraints and are no longer living within a ‘safe operating space for humanity’. The scientific realities cannot be negotiated away in a political compromise between ‘green’ and ‘growth’, and any attempt to do so only increases future problems,” continued Wates.

In the statement, the green groups highlighted an important technical shortcoming in the report regarding the measurement tools the OECD will use to monitor how green growth progresses, if at all.

Green growth is complex and the NGOs believe the single indicators the OECD proposes to use will fail to measure its true impacts. A composite indicator, which combines many individual indicators, would more successfully measure progress they say.

So far however the OECD has shown no commitment to using composite indicators and will instead use only 20 ‘headline’ indicators. The NGOs believe this risks key measurements being omitted and will undermine the entire purpose of the strategy.

The groups emphasised that national governments also have a leading role to play in defining a framework for action and starting significant policy reform.

Contact:

Simon Nazer, EEB Press Officer, +32 (0) 496438469, press@eeb.org

Notes:

[1] OECD website & meeting programme

[2] EEB & Greenpeace statement on the OECD’s Green Growth Strategy