Are we building back better? Not yet, UN report warns

Of the $1.9 trillion that the world’s 50 biggest economies announced in COVID-19 recovery spending by the end of 2020, only 18 percent can be considered green, found a UN and University of Oxford paper.

A bulk of large economies’ COVID-19 recovery spending is not green, putting the world on track to pouring billions of dollars into reinforcing polluting industries, a new paper from the United Nations and the University of Oxford warned on Wednesday. Indeed, rescue spending was absolutely critical to providing immediate relief to get health services responding to the surge in demand, and keeping families and businesses afloat, wrote Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in the foreword of the report. “But [governments] do have choices when thinking about planning recoveries once short-term relief has been provided,” she added.