New GCF Working Paper (01/20): ABOUT THE EUROPEAN GREEN DEAL

Acess the full Working Paper on the European Green Deal here

With the personnel change at the top of both the European Commission and the European Central Bank, a Green Deal for Europe has been put on the agenda. To be politically feasible and socially acceptable, the European Green Deal needs to reduce not only emissions but also unemployment { especially youth unemployment { and regional as well as social inequality throughout Europe. This is possible if the Green Deal shifts the EU economy to a new development path. To provide an example showing feasibility, our paper presents a structure for the Green Deal based on large scale additional investments, in the order of 1% of GDP annually. It outlines how these can be funded, and estimates effects in terms of reaching the goals. An essential point is that the resources must be used in such a way as to trigger a renewal of the European innovation system; while being a challenge, the European Green Deal can thus also become an opportunity – and may be the only opportunity – to reach a carbon neutral European economy by 2050 and to revert the trend of decreasing social cohesion in Europe much earlier.

Acess the full Working Paper on the European Green Deal here