30 March 2012: In a lecture on the green economy, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner argued that a transformational outcome at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) could begin to counter the “persistent, evolving and emerging crises.”

Steiner was delivering the Aurelio Peccei Lecture on the theme “Learning to Live on Only One Planet–Towards the UN Summit in Rio” in Rome, Italy, on 30 March. He said in 2008, when UNEP began work on the Global Green New Deal/Green Economy Initiative, it could not be foreseen how it might resonate. Steiner provided examples of countries’ efforts to transition to a green economy, including the example of Italy. He said that some sectors in Italy are transitioning to a green economy, for example, through plans for the solar powered Catania/Siracusa motorway, and also noted that Italy has one of the biggest land areas under organic agriculture.

Steiner underscored that the question facing world leaders, ministers, business and civil society at Rio+20, is what kind of big cooperative agreements could propel, scale-up and accelerate a transition so the “pace of positive sustainable change begins to outstrip so many negative indicators on the sustainability dial?” [UNEP Press Release]