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