The United Nations is calling on rich nations to forge a “Global Green New Deal” that puts the environment, climate change and poverty reduction at the heart of efforts to reboot the world economy. At a meeting in Kenya, the United Nations Environment Program said Leaders from the Group of 20 nations should commit at least one percent of gross domestic product over the next two years to slashing carbon emissions.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the UNEP: “Our meeting this year takes place against the backdrop of the most serious economic recession in a generation, some would say perhaps even longer. The traditional response to economic recession when addressing environmental issues is that essentially economic recession is a detraction from attention to environmental imperatives to act.”

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki also spoke at the UN meeting in Nairobi.

Mwai Kibaki: “Environmental degradation continues to undermine the prospects of fighting poverty and the realization of high economic growth and sustainable development, particularly in many developing countries.”