More nature, more jobs? Green investment seen as driver of coronavirus recovery

Building back greener could create millions of jobs and trillions in economic opportunity, the World Economic Forum says By Laurie Goering LONDON, July 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – In recent decades, Costa Rica has doubled its forest cover while tripling the size of its economy – an example of how better protecting nature can create jobs rather than curb them, the Central American country’s environment minister said Wednesday. "Restoring nature is not a burden to economic development," said Carlos Manuel Rodriguez during an online event organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF), famed for its high-powered annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. If similar shifts – from adopting smarter farming to slashing fossil fuel subsidies and rethinking urban land use – happened globally, they could create 395 million jobs and $10 trillion in new business opportunities by 2030, WEF officials said. But creating the changes would cost some $2.7 trillion in investment – about equal to U.S. stimulus spending announced in March to combat the impact of the new coronavirus, according to a new WEF report on the economic benefits of protecting nature . "It seems huge but … COVID has shown us that, as humanity, we are capable of […]

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