International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Abstract: The Green Economy (GE) paradigm aims to reconcile environmental and socio-economic 10 objectives. Policies to deploy renewable energy (RE) are widely perceived as a way to tap the 11 potential synergies of these objectives. It is,however,still largely unclear whether the potential of 12 simultaneously achieving both environmental and socio-economic objectives can be fully realized,13 and whether and how multiple objectives influence policy design,implementation,and evaluation. 14 We aim to contribute to this aspect of GE research by looking at selected country experiences of 15 renewable energy deployment with respect to the socio-economic goals of job creation or energy 16 access. Across the cases examined,we find the following implications of relevance for the GE 17 framework: First,we confirm the important role of governmental action for GE,with the specific 18 need to state objectives clearly and build monitoring capacity. Second,consistent with the ?strong? 19 green growth variant of GE,some of the cases suggest that while renewable deployment may indeed 20 lead to short-term socio-economic benefits,these benefits may not last. Third,we underline the 21 urgent need for new methodologies to analyze and better understand multiple-objective policies,22 which are at the heart of the GE paradigm.