Sustainability Transition in Greece

good afternoon

my name is phoebe kunduri i’m a

professor at the athens university of

economics and business and i’m going to

be talking about sustainable recovery

from

covet 19 pandemic at the moment we are

facing three big crisis

they call it pandemic which of course we

try to control

with uh social distancing measures and

biomedical

research for identifying the boxing the

huge recession that the pandemic is

causing and this is a very challenging

situation because

we need to take measures in order to

avoid the pandemic turning into a major

economic and financial crisis that will

long outlast the health crisis

we need to work the workforce to remain

employed even if guaranteeing

we need governments to channel financial

support to public and private

institutions

to support vulnerable cities and groups

we need sms to be safeguarded against

bankruptcy

we need policies to support the

financial system and

non-performing loans will mount and we

need fiscal party agents

comparable to the crisis related laws of

gdp to be financed by national

debt the third crisis that we are

simultaneously facing is of course the

mother of all prices the climate crisis

the climate crisis

refers to the urgency of limiting global

warming to

plus 1.5 degrees celsius beyond which

the risk of extreme weather events and

poverty for hundreds of millions of

people

will significantly increase there is no

country on earth at this point that is

not

experiencing the drastic effects of

climate change

the annual average economic losses from

climate-related disasters are in the

hundreds of billions of dollars

the human impact of geophysical

disasters

which are 90 climate related

is huge 1.3 million people killed

between 98 and 2017

and 4.4 billion injured

the carbon neutrality of

2050 announced within the european green

deal

is a crucial target the unep

emissions cup recalled a report of 2009

indicates that global emissions need to

be cut by

7.6 percent per year calculate that this

means a global reduction target of at

least 68

by 2030. luckily on the 17th of

september the european commission

president proposed to increase the 2030

gold for emissions reduction

from 40 of 1911s to at least

55 percent and

we have a sustainability policy

framework we have a blueprint

for guiding the recovery

the sustainable recovery from the

pandemic

and let me refer to it very briefly 2019

uh new york 193 countries signed

agenda 2030 of the united nations with

the 17 sustainable development goals

that refer

to people their prosperity

and their interaction with nature with

the planet

a few months later 197 countries signed

the paris climate agreement agreeing to

limit global temperature to well below 2

degrees

celsius in 2018 the intergovernmental

panel for climate change

uh announced that we need to limit

global temperature to 1.5 percent

two percent is not enough we cannot

handle the two percent

this implies they will net emissions

globally by 2050

in 2019 the sustainable development

solutions network of the united nations

and i’m on order to share

the country hub of this global network

announced during the climate week in new

york the six major transformations to

achieve the sdgs

this is a way to operate operationalize

the sdgs into six transformations

uh consistent with the way governments

are structured

these transformations are education

gender and inequality health

well-being and democracy energy

decolonization

sustainable industry sustainable food

land water and oceans

sustainable cities and communities and

the digital revolution for sustainable

development

in december 2019 we have the

announcement of the european green deal

this is the new growth strategy

of europe and it has four access climate

neutrality by 2050

counseling out pollution productive

biodiversity and human health

climate check leadership for european

companies

and the just transition leaving no one

behind the european green deal comes

with a budget

of 1 trillion half of it to come from eu

budget and the other half to be

mobilized by public private partnership

unfortunately 2020 we have the

corona virus pandemic flattening the

infection curves depends the micro

economic recession curve

and among many countries the and

mardi national uh institutions the

european commission came

with its own resiliency recovery plan

the eu

generation uh next generation

recovery and resilient instrument

which amounts to 750 billion

for investments that are climate and

digital

mainstream and the european green deal

is not the only top-down mobilization

around the world we have canada

uh pack for green util the south korean

green util the israeli

bring a recovery plan the u.s green new

gl that is gonna implement it now with

the new president

and the wonderful announcement of

china’s commercial

neutrality commitment before 2016.

and in addition to top-down mobilization

we have bottom-up mobilization within

the european green deal we have a

climate pack a

pack between politicians policy makers

the civil society

businesses ngo technology

developers research and education

a packet to

commit and engage if in a fundamental

transformation of our economic social

and financial systems

that will trigger exponential

change in decarbonization rates and

strengthen

climate resilience as indicated

explicitly

in the intergovernmental panel for

climate change report we need

rapid far-reaching and unprecedented

changes

in all aspects of the society and this

cannot be

achieved working through gradual

incremental changes we need major

transformations that we trigger

exponential

change and that is why we work in

with a systems innovation approach

at the moment i’m very um honored

uh to lead the european green deal

report of the united nations sustainable

development solutions network i leave

this report with professor

jeffrey sarks of columbia university and

president

on the united nations sustainable

development solutions network

this report identifies how

the 911 policies of the european green

deal biodiversity from

farm to park sustainable agriculture

clean energy sustainable industry

building and renovating sustainable

mobility eliminating pollution

and climate action can be jointly

implemented with the sustainable

development goals

the next generation eu recovery fund the

enhanced mff

the european semester process

recommendation

and we develop investment pathways

supported by technological pathways

that will allow them joining the

implementation of the policies i

mentioned

just now and in doing so we also

investigate the implications for job

creation

and inclusive jobs transition for each

and every

one of the 27 member states and then

we have scale our investment

recommendation

at the european level obviously

there are exists three major drivers the

first is decarbonization

and we need to revise our national

energy and climate plans towards

endorsing the 55 target

of increased ambition with regards to

to reduction of greenhouse gas emissions

for achieving a 55 percent reduction

we need to increase investment by 350

billion

per year investment in decarbonization

the technological pathways are gonna

help enable this decarbonization and

they’ve been identified explicitly

in the european commission annual

sustainable growth

strategy which identifies reforce and

investment to create european flagships

these flagships are power up

which means lay down the foundation for

hydrogen lead markets

renovate recharge and refuel connect

that is provide universal access to

rapid broadband services

modernize the uid and keep digital

public services scale

up and re-skill and upskill the labor

force so

that we can keep up to pace with the

technological

advancements during this era of the

fourth

industrial revolution circular economy

is the other major driver is a win-win

situation it saves

um 600 billion euro for eu businesses it

creates more than half a million jobs

it reduces the environmental footprint

of production

and it creates opportunities for public

private partnerships for

smes but also large large

companies and international companies

the third driver is climate change

adaptation

infrastructure which generates a triple

dividend

it avoids losses due to climate change

it produces economic benefits from the

investment programs

any producers social and environmental

benefits

and of course in with these mobilizers

we

also need to try to uh

have equity consideration and introduce

measures to counterbalance the

regressive effects

of decarbonization and at the same time

create sustainable finance finance

that is in accordance with the eu

taxonomy for sustainable

investment and also introduced uses

credibly structured financial

instruments like green bonds that

that can accelerate the sustainability

transition

all this is also referred in the

uh landsat copy 19 commission that is

promoting solutions to improving public

health and

support economic recovery and an honor

to lead

the task force on job space green

recovery

again there we indicated that the

recovery

should uh support the transition towards

sustainable and inclusive societies

based on the sdgs and the paris climate

agreement

this uh is the focus of the work that we

do

in the cluster for sustainability

transition

i lead this group

of researchers and institutions

that work on transforming research and

innovation

into climate action and the basic

institutions are the sustainable

development institute at the attention

university of economics and business the

un

sustainable development solution network

of greece that

includes such members all universities

and research institutions of the country

and the eit climate kick-up of greece

which basically accelerates uh

climate-related innovation in the market

we work across the five continents

mostly in europe but also around the

world

in large interdisciplinary projects with

a sustainability focus we have three

access

research and innovation projects

innovation acceleration and deep

demonstration

in education and training our main

thematics are projects on green digital

just

recovery circular economy climate change

mitigation

and adaptation we also weld

in uh blue growth we have many

interdisciplinary research projects and

deep demonstration projects

but also global initiatives like the

global roundtable for sustainable

shipping and ports and the forces

initiative that

develops pathways for the implementation

of blue growth in the black

sea the mediterranean the sea the cape

experience the

and the rlc finally our third axis

of research is water food energy nexus

smart agriculture

and smart airplane waters and we are

proud to have

won the biggest um

european research council

aboard on smart

water futures which is now one of the

biggest projects on a small water

systems

around the world finally we accelerate

such

a successful uh startups in greece on

various aspects of sustainability

uh renewable energy like hydrogen waste

management

immobility and

marine uh recycling this is all we do

in order to transform research and

innovation

into climate action thank you