Start website main content

  • Istituto di Economia

Towards a Green New Deal: the first documentary realised for the H2020 project GROWINPRO coordinated by the Institute of Economics of Sant’Anna School is out

Publication date: 30.07.2020
Image for growinpro_video.jpg
Back to Sant'Anna Magazine

The world is facing an unprecedented crisis following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. But, as many academics and policy makers are pointing out, the global response to the crisis could inform the fight against the climate emergency.

The recovery plans that many countries are putting in place “should be focused on the green new deal strategy of lowering carbon emissions while also investing in workers, and making sure they can adapt to new technologies”, wrote Mariana Mazzucato, GROWINPRO researcher and director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, on the Guardian newspaper.

Last April, a letter endorsed by 17 European climate and environment ministers urged governments “not to lose sight of the persisting climate and ecological crisis, when working out how to spur the economy after the coronavirus pandemic”.

The first GROWINPRO short documentary, filmed before the outbreak of the pandemic and released at the beginning of June, focuses on the Green New Deal and on the policies that we need to implement in order to jumpstart a green, smart and inclusive growth.

Providing a comprehensive diagnostic of the climate emergency and of its consequences, as well as laying out a set of policy proposals to push Europe towards an innovation-fuelled growth is one of the core objectives of the GROWINPRO project and well in line with the actual European policies.

In 2019 two GROWINPRO studies published on Nature Climate Change and on Proceedings of National Academy of Science (PNAS) found, respectively, that climate-related damages can significantly affect the stability of the global financial system and that the cost of the economic damages caused by extreme natural disasters such as floods, storms, hurricanes, heat waves, droughts and wildfires have risen significantly over the last 50 years.

The documentary features interviews with Andrea Roventini, GROWINPRO’s coordinator, Mariana Mazzucato, and Lord Adair Turner, chairman of the Energy Transition Commission, who participated also to event Climate change: challenges and opportunities organised at Sant’Anna School last September within the public engagement activities of the GROWINPRO project.

Visit the GROWINPRO website to watch the video and read other interesting news and papers developed by the GROWINPRO researchers on growth, welfare, innovation, productivity.