Sixteen industrialised, emerging economies and developing countries, including Guyana, have signed the Establishment Agreement in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that will convert the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) into an international organization.
Co-hosted by the Republic of Korea, the Kingdom of Denmark, the Commonwealth of Australia and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), the signing ceremony for the Agreement on the Establishment of GGGI was held on June 20 on the occasion of Rio+20, United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The 16 countries are: Australia, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ethiopia, Guyana, Kiribati, Korea, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, the Philippines, Qatar, the UAE, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam, a press release from the Office of Climate Change in Guyana said last evening.
President Donald Ramotar was among six heads of government, including Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Kiribati President Anote Tong, and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who delivered welcoming and congratulatory remarks.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg were also present at the signing ceremony.
The purpose of the signing ceremony was to prepare the legal framework for GGGI’s conversion into an international organization. The signatories will become the founding members of GGGI when it launches as a new international organisation in October, this year.
“Today’s signing of the agreement on the establishment of GGGI as an international organization marks a new chapter in the institutional development of GGGI, more forcefully committing itself hereinafter to the global promotion of green growth paradigm. I am sure that this will help herald a new era of global sustainability as well as human welfare,” said former Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo, who served as the Chair of the GGGI Board of Directors.
And speaking at the event, President Ramotar is quoted as saying: “GGGI’s guiding ethos – that under the right international conditions, developing countries can lead the world to a prosperous, sustainable future – is the ethos that we need the wider world to accept.
The world also needs to know that progress is possible, and I am proud to say that Guyana was one of the first countries in the world to put together a Low Carbon Development Strategy which is now three years into implementation. Working with Norway, we are one of the first countries in the world to sell environmental services.”
President Ramotar said further that Guyana is pleased to be associated with the GGGI since its inception. “We are honoured to be here at this significant milestone, and we hope to see the institute grow from strength to strength in the years ahead,” he added.
GGGI Executive Director Richard Samans thanked the signatory governments for their leadership and said, “The treaty you have signed today creates a new kind of international organisation for the 21st century: interdisciplinary; multi-stakeholder and driven by the practical priorities of emerging and developing countries which are seeking to engineer a new model of growth and development that achieves strong, broad-based progress in living standards with greater resource security and environmental sustainability.”
Headquartered in Seoul, Korea and founded in June 2010, GGGI is dedicated to pioneering a new model of environmentally sustainable economic growth, known as “green growth.”
The release explained that its conversion into an international organisation is expected to facilitate GGGI’s mission to develop and diffuse green growth as an economic model around the world.
Its Board of Directors includes leading British climate change economist Lord Nicholas Stern, former South African finance minister Trevor Manuel, former president of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo, Brazilian environment minister Isabella Teixeira, and leading international economic advisor Professor Jeffrey Sachs.
GGGI is a new effort initiated by the Republic of Korea in 2010 to promote a paradigm shift in economic development – an approach which targets both economic performance and environmental sustainability – to address climate change and serve as a pathway to sustainable development.
Since then, other like-minded countries have joined GGGI to advance the theory and practice of green growth.
GGGI partners with developing countries and emerging economies, including least developed countries, to develop green growth strategies and plans that deliver poverty reduction, job creation and social inclusion in an environmentally sustainable way, the release added.
