KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – The Resident Consultant of the United Nations Growth Programme (UNDP), Dr. Kishan Khoday, is asking on the Jamaican authorities to advance social dialogue on the Inexperienced Financial Development Mannequin report by stakeholder consultations with the non-public sector, civil society, academia, and weak communities.
He stated that as Jamaica considers advancing its plans for a climate-resilient economic system, the nation should make sure the transition leaves no weak group behind.
“This requires enough consultations, sources, and programmatic alignment to safe full participation and advantages within the inexperienced economic system”, he added.
The Inexperienced Development research forecasts as much as 8,000 new jobs in Jamaica and practically 1% higher gross home product (GDP) progress from a inexperienced economic system in comparison with a business-as-usual economic system.
The research was supported below the UNDP’s Local weather Promise Pledge to Influence Programme, which has supported over 120 international locations in enhancing and implementing Nationally Decided Contributions (NDCs) below the Paris Settlement.
The report requires Jamaica to think about an entire transition to a inexperienced and climate-resilient economic system, modeled on inexperienced industries and inexperienced tech, sustainable agriculture and tourism, and renewable power.
The inexperienced progress mannequin is projected to extend family revenue, resulting in poverty alleviation, job creation, and a better and extra diversified progress path for the economic system, whereas making Jamaica extra resilient to the local weather disaster, in response to the research.
The brand new research has already been handed over to the federal government, and Dr. Khoday referred to as for the federal government to rigorously contemplate the research’s 5 key coverage actions advisable for a simply and equitable transition course of that leaves nobody behind – specifically, social dialogue and
Social safety, expertise coaching, inexperienced enterprise growth, entrepreneurship, and monetary coverage reform.
The research explains that social safety will likely be crucial to assist employees who face job restructuring and households negatively impacted by the power transition. In the meantime, inexperienced tech and climate-smart practices should be built-in into expertise coaching outputs and curricula to satisfy the rising demand for STEM and inexperienced service sector jobs.
Inexperienced enterprise growth and inexperienced entrepreneurship are additionally advisable to assist financial diversification. Fiscal coverage reform is proposed as a key driver of the monetary restructuring course of.
The research additionally proposes a fiscal-neutral and progressive fossil gas or carbon tax, which might redistribute revenues from extra prosperous households to these with decrease incomes. It requires income from carbon and power taxes to be directed to a simply transition fund, which can finance expertise coaching, inexperienced expertise funding, and social safety for employees and households negatively impacted by the transition.
The research additional recommends that this progressive tax needs to be coupled with diminished labour taxes.
The UNDP flagship programme is supported by the governments of Germany, Japan, the UK, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Iceland, the Netherlands, Portugal, and different UNDP core contributors, and the UNDP stated it underpins its contribution to the NDC Partnership and the trail to this 12 months’s crucial UN Local weather COP30 gathering within the area.
