Zero Emissions Solutions Conference

During the pandemic and post-pandemic recovery, governments are urged to focus on green recovery. A green economy would significantly enhance the resilience of both economies and societies in the face of future economic recessions and environmental challenges. But many governments are unsure about what green economic recovery means for their countries, how can they demonstrate the benefit of it. This session discussed what developing countries’ governments can do to start a green recovery using experience from other countries. This session also talked about aligning green recovery with countries’s climate ambition, how to share understanding that Covid recovery presents opportunities for alignment with climate targets, and manage political and complex policy coordination. And finally this session presented experience on doing circular economy to facilitate a Covid recovery.

The Pathfinder Initiative is working to synthesise, and collaborate with key stakeholders to disseminate evidence on the development and implementation of multi-sectoral actions to sustain and improve health, while accelerating progress towards a post-carbon economy. This session highlighted the opportunities to improve health and well-being that are available by transitioning to a net zero society and some of the challenges faced in achieving these benefits. The session provided a broad overview of some of the major pathways and opportunities to improve health and then take a detailed look at a number of specific sectoral actions and discuss how these can be scaled for impact.

As nations are ramping up their commitments to transformative action, the question of efficient financing looms over ambitious promises. Our panelists discussed suggestions for stakeholder collaboration and concrete solutions to help achieve our shared ambitions within the framework of the Paris Agreement. These speakers are drawn from the SDG Action initiative. SDG Action is a new initiative launched by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) to support the UN’s Decade of Action – the global effort to mobilize governments, businesses, and civil society to deliver the SDGs by 2030. SDG Action is a resource for sustainability practitioners in all sectors and will bring timely analysis of the most pressing challenges. Its emphasis is on identifying opportunities and providing tangible ways to accelerate progress. This website features articles from world-leading experts on all aspects of the SDGs and climate action and this month’s edition is focused on climate action. www.sdg-action.org.