GGGI Council Chair Lars Rasmussen addresses the Global Green Growth Summit 2013 during the opening ceremony on June 10

SONGDO –June 10, 2013 –The Global Green Growth Summit 2013, an annual event on the international aspects of green growth, began today in Songdo, Republic of Korea.

Organized by the Global Green Growth Institute together with key ministries in the Republic of Korea, the conference focused on The Future of Green Growth: Finance, Innovation and Policy. The first day’s sessions centered on financing green growth, including energy, transport, water, and agriculture.

GGGI Council Chair and former Prime Minister of Denmark Lars Løkke Rasmussen and GGGI Assembly President and former President of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo opened the two-day event, emphasizing the importance of international cooperation in the pursuit of green growth, and underscoring the need to share lessons across countries.

President Jagdeo said, “We need to keep developing the indisputable case that inclusive green growth is the only form of growth that makes economic and societal sense, and to work to develop the tools that allow that form of growth to be implemented.”

Chairman Rasmussen said, “GGGI and its partners are as committed as ever to shifting the growth paradigm to global green growth.  Our vision of green growth is as relevant as ever, despite serious concerns surrounding the state of the global economy and concerns about financial commitments to climate change adaptation and mitigation.”

Participants emphasized the need for new approaches to institutions and structures to mobilize and deliver green growth finance at scale.  “Today we broke new ground on the issue of climate finance,” said Dr. Simon Zadek, GGGI Senior Fellow and Advisor to the GGGS.

“Discussions typically center on how to get wealthy countries to pay their fair share for climate mitigation and adaptation, and how most effectively to blend public and private funding. The GGGS debate showed that these dimensions would not deliver enough and highlighted the need for financial market reform to reach the needed scale and speed for green investment. We need urgently to build on this agenda-setting debate, exploring how best to extend the mandate and practice of financial regulators ensure not only financial market resilience but also that these markets are aligned to resilience of the wider economy and ecology. Today the climate finance debate grew up,” he said.

The Summit is scheduled to conclude on June 11 and will include sessions on green technology, fiscal instruments for green growth, and how to best measure progress. A live stream of the Summit is available at www.gggsummit.org.

See a collection of media coverage from GGGS 2013 here