Goals

So far, no comprehensive analysis providing an overview of the key domains of contemporary Hungary’s transition to sustainability in a unified structure has been available. Very little is known about where the country stands on the path of transition to a green economy, how it has dealt with the challenges emerging with climate change, or what results it has achieved in creating a cohesive society. The fields calling for immediate intervention and comprehensive change, on the one hand, and the domains leaving more room for deliberation before taking action, on the other hand, have not been identified. These are the deficiencies our report seeks, partially at, to rectify. 

The overarching objective has been to compile all the statistical information and knowledge available on the economy, the environment and society in a unified framework, and to present the results from the perspective of sustainability. We believe that this multitude of data, tables and graphs will eventually come together to give a clear picture of Hungarian conditions and our attitude to the environment. 

We are committed to making the Report on the Green New Deal a valuable tool in recognising the most important problems and in preparing the most important decisions. When the strategic goals are clarified, a continuously maintained system of indicators can be very helpful in defining the areas of intervention and to quantifying the impact of the measures taken. 

The more data we analyse concerning the state of our society, the clearer three things become. First of all, we need to better understand the changes going on in our environment and to become more accurate in our assessments and analyses. Secondly, the environmental, social and economic systems are closely integrated. The crisis of our natural resources cannot be accounted for solely by reference to the natural environment and its systems, either at the level of underlying causes or of manifest symptoms. To the contrary, this and other global problems are just as much caused as they are reflected by the functioning of our societies and economies. There is no “separate” environmental crisis. The third lesson we must draw is that urgent action is called for. The time we have left to act is probably only a matter of years, perhaps a decade or two, so that we have a chance to halt these changes and keep them within manageable bounds.

In recent decades, such comprehensive policy proposals and solutions were launched in developed countries under the label of the Green New Deal (GND). The Green New Deal is a series of economic, social and environmental measures designed to lead to the creation of an equitable, just and democratic society while decreasing resource use and reducing our impact on the environment. It follows that the Green New Deal does not merely affect environmental or resource policies, but also directly impacts such diverse issues as that of human capital, the economic structure and the state of our democracies.

We hope this report will contribute to, and accelerate the Green New Deal.