'Building Back Better' in Practice : A Science-Policy Framework for a Green Economic Recovery after COVID-19
As humanity’s current production and consumption patterns exceed planetary boundaries, many opinion leaders have stressed the need to adopt green economic stimulus policies in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, in line with the United Nations...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Format: | Working Paper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/622001611844084014/Building-Back-Better-in-Practice-A-Science-Policy-Framework-for-a-Green-Economic-Recovery-after-COVID-19 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35101 |
Summary: | As humanity’s current production and
consumption patterns exceed planetary boundaries, many
opinion leaders have stressed the need to adopt green
economic stimulus policies in the aftermath of the COVID-19
pandemic, in line with the United Nations Sustainable
Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
This paper provides an integrated framework to design an
economic recovery strategy aligned with sustainability
objectives through a multi-criterion, multi-stakeholder
lens. The aim is to enable decisions by policy makers with
the aid of transparent workflows that include expert
evidence that is based on quantitative open-source modeling,
and qualitative input by diverse social actors in a
participatory approach. The paper employs an energy systems
model and an economic input-output model to provide
quantitative evidence and design a multi-criteria decision
process that engages stakeholders from government,
enterprises, and civil society. As a case study, the paper
studies 13 green recovery measures that are relevant for
Cyprus and assesses their appropriateness for criteria
related to environmental sustainability, socioeconomic and
job impact, and climate resilience. The results highlight
trade-offs between immediate and long-run effects, between
economic and environmental objectives, and between expert
evidence and societal priorities. Importantly, the paper
finds that a “return-to-normal” economic stimulus is not
only environmentally unsustainable, but also economically
inferior to most green recovery schemes. |
---|