Global Green Growth Summit is an annual event centered on Green Growth. The Summit provides a unique opportunity to engage in a collective thought process about the cooperative arrangements and initiatives that could accelerate the transition to a new, more sustainable paradigm of Green Growth.
1. Global Green Growth Summit 2011; Building Planet – Responsible Civilization (20-21 June 2011, Seoul, Korea)
The first annual Global Green Growth Summit was held on June 20 and 21, 2011 in Seoul, Korea. The event was hosted by the Korean government and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and organized by multiple groups, including GGGI, the National Research Council for Economics, Humanities and Social Sciences (NRCS), the Korea Development Institute, and in partnership with the United Nations. The summit featured leading international experts on the environment, economic development, science, and technology in an effort to further the dialogue on the multiple issues surrounding the concept of green growth. The summit also featured addresses from a number of dignitaries, including President Lee Myung-bak of the Republic of Korea, President H.E. Bharrat Jagdeo of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, and Secretary-General of the OECD Angel Gurria. Several GGGI officials participated in the summit, either through speeches, panel discussions, or both, such as then Board Chair Han Seung-soo, and Executive Director Richard Samans.
The over-arching theme of the summit was “Building a Planet-Responsible Civilization,” which was defined by President Lee as the necessity for humanity to move beyond the industrial age to one in which economic progress does not have a destructive impact upon the earth.
The summit consisted of panel discussions and roundtable sessions on various topics ranging from further refining practical green growth and sustainable development implementation policies to the role civil society can play in fostering and supporting green growth. GGGI Executive Director Richard Samans chaired a panel discussion entitled GGGI and a New Framework of Cooperation wherein Mr. Samans spelled out GGGI’s mission as supporting countries to develop in a green and sustainable manner, facilitating public-private cooperation, and conducting research.
2. Global Green Growth Summit 2012; Global Governance for Green Growth and the Green Economy (10-11 May 2012, Seoul, Korea)
Under the main theme of “Global Governance for Green Growth and the Green Economy,” GGGS 2012 convened top economic and environmental policymakers and experts from around the world to discuss specific ways in which international cooperation could be strengthened to support countries that wish to pursue green growth and green economy strategies.
GGGS 2012 had a highly interactive format in order to stimulate ideas and partnerships for improvements in international economic and environmental cooperation. There were four interactive plenary sessions in which:
- Leading entrepreneurs and scholars provided their vision of how international cooperation must evolve to spur a new and fundamentally more resource-efficient industrial revolution.
- Senior public figures discussed how international economic and environmental governance could be strengthened and better aligned to support green growth, including which opportunities in this respect should be seized at the G20 Leaders and United Nations Rio+20 Summit.
- Policymakers from countries that are first or fast movers on green growth and the green economy explored their plans in 2012 as well as their longer term vision for cooperation in this field.
- Leaders of international organizations involved in the Summit took stock of the agenda that has emerged from the two days of discussions and articulated their vision of the priorities for their institutions as well as the wider international system going forward.
3. Global Green Growth Summit 2013 (10-11 June 2013, Korea)
This will be the third annual event and will be held 10-11 June, 2013, Korea.
