UN Green-Economy and Climate Initiatives: PAGE and Momentum for Change

PAGE and Momentum for Change are two separate UN efforts. This card puts them side by side before the detail starts.

What is each one?

PAGE is the Partnership for Action on Green Economy. It brings together five UN agencies: UNEP, UNDP, ILO, UNIDO and UNITAR. They help partner countries move towards an Inclusive Green Economy.

Momentum for Change is run by the UNFCCC secretariat. That is the UN office for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It recognises climate action by non-Party stakeholders.

How do they differ?

Which words should I know?

• Inclusive Green Economy (IGE): the goal PAGE sets for its partner countries.
• Non-Party stakeholder: the secretariat’s term for those it recognises. The 2016 announcement lists individuals, companies and governments that are not negotiating Parties.
• Lighthouse Project: the name Momentum for Change gave to its showcased projects in 2011.
• Secretariat: the staff office that supports a UN treaty body.

PAGE is built around the idea of a green economy. This card gives the UN’s own wording. It also shows what Rio+20 said about it.

What is Rio+20?

Rio+20 is the common name for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development. It met in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 20 to 22 June 2012. Its outcome document is called “The Future We Want”.

UNEP calls its Green Economy report a key contribution to the Rio+20 process. It adds that the Rio+20 agenda adopted “green economy” as a key theme.

What did Rio+20 say about green economy?

• Section III: it is titled “Green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication”.
• Paragraph 56: green economy is “one of the important tools” for sustainable development. It could give options for policymaking but should not be “a rigid set of rules”.
• Paragraph 58: green economy policies should respect each country’s national sovereignty over its natural resources. They should also be consistent with international law.

Paragraph 56 also says each country has different approaches, visions, models and tools. Each country uses them according to its own circumstances and priorities.

How does UNEP define a green economy?

UNEP defines a green economy as one with improved human well-being and social equity. It also has significantly lower environmental risks and ecological scarcities.

In its simplest form, UNEP says, a green economy is low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive.

What was UNEP’s Green Economy Initiative?

The 2008 economic and financial crisis led the UN Secretary-General and his Chief Executives Board to take up nine Joint Crisis Initiatives. UNEP coordinated the Green Economy Initiative, which was one of the nine.

Its main output was the 2011 report “Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication”. The report argues that greening economies is not generally a drag on growth.

This card looks closely at PAGE. It shows the start date, the five agencies and how PAGE is run.

When was PAGE launched?

PAGE says it was launched in 2013 as a response to the call at Rio+20. The call was to help countries build economies that improve human well-being and social equity. Those economies should also cut environmental risks and ecological scarcities.

UPSC 2018 asked where PAGE “emerged”. The official key gave Rio de Janeiro 2012. PAGE’s own page gives 2013 for the launch, as a response to the Rio+20 call. The exam word “emerged” and PAGE’s word “launched” are not the same.

What does PAGE do?

• Aim: it helps countries move to an Inclusive Green Economy.
• Tools: policy advice, assessments, capacity building and analytical tools.
• Demand-driven: it responds to each country’s needs and links to national planning frameworks.
• Standing: PAGE says it is increasingly recognised as a model of coordinated UN support for the SDGs and the Paris Agreement targets.

Which five agencies belong to PAGE?

• UNEP: it hosts the PAGE Secretariat and supports PAGE by managing its Trust Fund.
• ILO: it helps countries create an enabling environment for green job opportunities.
• UNDP: it brings expertise in environment, poverty, gender and governance, and in innovative financing.
• UNIDO: it gives industrial policy advice and works on greening industrial sectors.
• UNITAR: it supports international training programmes and national competency development.

Who runs PAGE?

The PAGE Management Board makes management decisions at the global level. It approves the workplan and selects the partner countries. Its members are director-level representatives of the PAGE agencies.

The Global Technical Team coordinates the operational side of planning and implementing PAGE. The PAGE Secretariat is hosted by UNEP.

Momentum for Change is an initiative of the UNFCCC secretariat. This card shows how it was announced, launched and designed.

When was it announced and launched?

The UNFCCC secretariat announced it in a press release from Bonn on 22 November 2011. The launch event was held on the evening of 6 December 2011. It took place at COP17, the UN climate conference in Durban, South Africa.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and South African President Jacob Zuma took part in the launch.

What did it set out to do?

The secretariat wanted to show climate action already under way on the ground. It chose to highlight Lighthouse Projects. They had to help fight poverty, be replicable in other countries and be scalable. Replicable means others can copy it. Scalable means it can grow.

The first stage focused on least developed countries in Africa. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supported it.

What was showcased in 2011?

The launch showcased 10 projects. A total of 28 representatives of the projects spoke to the moderator, Lord Nicholas Stern. All ten were public-private partnerships. Examples include:

• Clean cookstoves: a global public-private alliance to spread efficient cookstoves.
• Micro-insurance: cover for farmers in the Horn of Africa against crop failure from droughts and floods.
• Solar bottle lights: used to bring light into homes in the Philippines.
• Indian solar: the project “Scaling Up Solar in India through Public-Private Action”.

How did its focus areas change?

An archived UNFCCC page gives dates for three focus areas. The 2016 announcement names the later ones, so the link between the two pages is likely rather than certain:

• Urban Poor: 2011 to 2015, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
• ICT Solutions: 2015 to 2017, with the Global e-Sustainability Initiative.
• Planetary Health: 2017 to 2019, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Other focus areas are Women for Results, Financing for Climate Friendly Investment, Climate Leaders and Climate Neutral Now.

That archived page is titled “2021 UN Global Climate Action Awards”, as at 3 January 2026. It says the winners of the 2021 edition were announced on 6 October.

Climate Neutral Now began as its own UNFCCC initiative. It joined Momentum for Change in 2016. The exam question uses the merged name, so the dates matter.

When did each begin, and when did they combine?

The UNFCCC secretariat launched Momentum for Change in December 2011. It launched Climate Neutral Now in September 2015.

On 17 November 2016 the secretariat announced “Momentum for Change: Climate Neutral Now”. The announcement said it brings together two of the secretariat’s flagship activities. It came at a special event at COP22 in Marrakech, Morocco.

So Climate Neutral Now was launched in September 2015. It was combined with Momentum for Change only on 17 November 2016.

What are the three steps?

The secretariat says climate neutrality is a three-step process. Individuals, companies and governments should:

1. Measure their climate footprint.
2. Reduce their emissions as much as possible.
3. Offset what they cannot reduce with UN-certified emission reductions.

An offset is a certified emission reduction used to cancel emissions you could not cut. In 2016 Microsoft provided its Azure cloud platform. The secretariat’s online platform for voluntary cancellation of certified emission reductions is built on it.

What did the announcement promise?

The announcement said the new initiative would showcase efforts by individuals, companies and governments. They should be achieving real results in moving to climate neutrality.

The announcement said Momentum for Change would have five focus areas in 2017. They were to be Women for Results, Financing for Climate Friendly Investment, ICT Solutions, Planetary Health and Climate Neutral Now.

The announcement said that from 2017, people, institutions and companies could submit examples of their move to climate neutrality. The best would be chosen as Momentum for Change Lighthouse Activities. They were to be celebrated at COP23.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa spoke of a climate neutral world in the second half of the century.

These are PAGE’s own numbers, as at 9 October 2026. Some of them differ between PAGE pages. This card shows both figures where they differ.

How many partner countries does PAGE have?

The “PAGE in brief” page says 22 partner countries. The PAGE home page says “23 Partner countries and regions”. The partner list in the site menu has 24 entries.

Two of the 24 entries are sub-national. They are Jiangsu Province in China and Mato Grosso State in Brazil. So “over 20” is the safe way to say it.

Partners on the list include India, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia and Uzbekistan.

What results does PAGE report?

As at 9 October 2026, the “PAGE in brief” page reports:

• Requests: 66 countries have requested PAGE support.
• Policies: 98 policies adopted so far, out of 123 supported policies. The home page gives 133 supported policies, so the two PAGE pages differ.
• Training: 62,923 people trained.

Who pays for PAGE?

The partners page says contributions and pledges for 2013 to 2025 total US$ 113.1 million. The “PAGE in brief” page gives US$ 108.75 million as total contributions. The pages differ, so this lesson uses the partners-page total.

The two highest amounts listed are from Germany, at US$ 29.66 million, and the European Union, at US$ 29.43 million.

India is a PAGE partner country. This card shows when it joined and what PAGE has supported there. Most of the detail is from PAGE’s own pages of 2026.

When did India join PAGE?

India joined PAGE in 2018. Its entry point was the National Stocktaking Study on Inclusive Green Economy. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) is the lead ministry for PAGE India.

PAGE’s India page lists other national partners. They include the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) and the Ministries of Textiles, Finance, and Labour and Employment.

What has PAGE supported in India?

• Eco-mark Rules: PAGE supported MoEFCC on the 2024 update of the Eco-mark Rules. The update made the scheme more extensive.
• Public procurement: PAGE worked with the Ministry of Finance on sustainable public procurement. Recommendations were piloted on the Government e-Marketplace.
• Circular economy: PAGE supported a framework for a national Centre of Excellence on Circular Economy. The India page lists a 2023 guidance manual on setting one up.

The India page also notes that in 2023 the Prime Minister made the LiFE mission the central theme of India’s G20 presidency. LiFE stands for Lifestyles for Environment.

What is the textile roadmap?

On 16 September 2026 the Ministry of Textiles released three documents at the World Circular Economy Forum in Gandhinagar. PAGE had supported them. They are a Baseline Assessment, the India Textile Technology and Innovation Roadmap 2047, and a Technology and Innovation Compendium.

PAGE developed the Roadmap through UNIDO, in close cooperation with MoEFCC and the Ministry of Textiles. The Roadmap has three phases:

• Align: 2026 to 2030, for policy alignment, technology modernisation and digital readiness.
• Amplify: 2030 to 2035, for scaling successful interventions through wider deployment.
• Accelerate: 2035 to 2047, for positioning India as a global leader in textile technology and innovation.

PAGE’s news page says the textile sector supports more than 45 million direct jobs. It also says WCEF2026 was the first edition of the forum held in South Asia.

Two other UNFCCC-linked names sound alike. They are NAZCA and Race to Zero. Each has its own purpose and its own page.

What is NAZCA?

NAZCA stands for Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action. It is the UN Climate Change transparency hub for non-Party stakeholders. It registers and shows climate actions by countries, regions, cities, companies, investors and many other groups.

The portal was launched at COP20 in Lima, Peru, in 2014. The Paris Agreement’s Decision Text recognised the efforts of all actors. It encouraged them to register their actions on NAZCA.

At COP26 in November 2021 NAZCA added a way to track voluntary climate action. A redevelopment roadmap was launched at COP30 in Belem. These two points are as at 10 May 2026.

What is Race to Zero?

Race to Zero was launched on 5 June 2020, World Environment Day. It is a global campaign for a healthy, resilient, zero-carbon recovery. It was launched under the leadership of the UNFCCC Champions for Climate Action.

At launch it covered 992 businesses, 449 cities, 21 regions, 505 universities and 38 of the biggest investors. These actors joined 120 countries in the Climate Ambition Alliance. The COP25 President said the Alliance was launched in September 2019, and that Race to Zero was born from it.

How do the three names differ?

The 2018 Prelims paper had two questions on these topics. This card shows both and the official answers. It then lists the traps. The linked paper file name ends in C, but its pages carry the Series A footer.

Which questions were they?

What are the traps?

1. “Emerged” versus “launched”. The exam answer is the 2012 Rio conference. PAGE itself says it was launched in 2013, in response to the Rio+20 call.
2. Paris. PAGE says it supports the Paris Agreement targets. That makes option (c) tempting, but PAGE ties its start to the Rio+20 call.
3. UNEP. UNEP is one of the five PAGE agencies and hosts its Secretariat. Momentum for Change is run by the UNFCCC secretariat, not by UNEP.
4. The merger date. Climate Neutral Now was launched in September 2015. It was combined with Momentum for Change on 17 November 2016.
5. The merged name. The question uses “Momentum for Change : Climate Neutral Now”. It is the name announced at COP22.
6. The count. PAGE’s own pages say 22 and 23 partner countries. Say “over 20” unless a question gives a date and a source.