Abstract
A green economy that simultaneously promotes environmental sustainability, social inclusiveness, and economic growth is expected to benefit the heavily resource-dependent least developed countries. Yet, internationally, there is very little empirically based research on how the “green development” agenda translates into natural resource management policies in the least developed countries. This paper examines the implementation of green economy policies at the national level in the energy and forestry sectors in the Lao PDR and Cambodia. Both countries have adopted green growth targets; however, in terms of natural resources management, two contradictory processes have taken place during the past decade. While there have been some initiatives to decentralize natural resource management by enhancing the role of local communities role, such as community-based forest or fishery management, the far greater trend has been the opening up of the economies of the Lao PDR and Cambodia to large-scale investments by multinational enterprises. Large-scale hydropower projects and increasing deforestation pose challenges to more sustainable natural resource management efforts. This article is based on an analysis of the national green economy strategies and expert interviews with the government, academia, private sector and international and national development organizations. Focusing on the energy and forestry sectors, but also analysing the national green economy strategies as a whole, our analysis sheds light on the choices made in the national development versus green economy strategies. While green economy thinking rests on strong state regulation, the policies are often formulated within a complex dynamic of donor and investor interests. The achievement of a green economy depends on the state; thus, it should steer investments to ecologically less harmful industries and ensure social inclusiveness in land-use decisions. Our results show, however, that implementing a green economy is far more complex. Despite the quest for synergies, at the sectoral level there are still many unaddressed trade-offs between, for example, energy sources and forms of land use.
Highlights
Emerging from the field of environmental economics, the concept of a green economy became the centrepiece of the United Nation’s “Rio+20” conference in 2012, launching the green economy as the new buzzword in international policy discourse related to sustainable development
In the Lao PDR, we analysed the Lao PDR’s 8th Five-Year National Socio-Economic Development Plan (NSEDP) 2016–2020 [32], the Lao PDR First Programmatic Green Growth Development Policy Operation [33], and the first draft of the new National Green Growth Strategy of the Lao PDR [34]. The purpose of this analysis was to examine more closely the underlying definition of “green economy” in both countries. We examined this by focusing on a few guiding questions: What are the main goals set for the strategies? With what kinds of policies and targets do the strategies strive to reach the key goals of green economy: social inclusiveness, carbon reduction, and resource-efficiency? What implications may we expect the strategies to have at the national level, and will they be in line with the green economy discourse? to understand the difficult task of dealing with trade-offs, we examined the energy and forestry sectors and the priorities, policies, and targets that the strategies set for them
We have looked at how these ideals translate into national level policies by examining the case of Cambodia and the Lao PDR
Summary
Emerging from the field of environmental economics, the concept of a green economy became the centrepiece of the United Nation’s “Rio+20” conference in 2012, launching the green economy as the new buzzword in international policy discourse related to sustainable development. A green economy is low-carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive. Growth in income and employment are driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services [1]. The green economy is presented as being able to generate as much, or even more growth as the current business-as-usual economy, albeit in a more sustainable and inclusive manner. The United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) green economy report states that trade-offs are inevitable between environmental sustainability and economic progress, but fixing the failures in pricing policies and implementing regulatory changes that incentivize environmentally and socially sustainable economic development can provide opportunities for growth and employment [1]. The goal is to look for synergies, rather than trade-offs, and “recouple” environmental protection and economic growth [4,5]
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