Nairobi - The head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and other environmental experts Monday called for an urgent transition to a green economy as the best way to pull the world out of global recession in a sustainable manner.

Speaking as an international conference of over 100 environment ministers got underway in Nairobi, Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director and UN Under-Secretary General, said that stimulus packages designed to kick start ailing economies should dedicate serious investment to green technologies.

"It is an economic imperative, an environmental imperative and a moral imperative," Steiner said. "I find it incredible that we will spend this amount of money today without thinking about where our children's jobs will come from."

Steiner said that at least one per cent of global Gross Domestic Product should be dedicated to building the green economy and creating jobs.

UNEP's 2009 Global Green New Deal report, released at the meeting, warns that returning to "business as usual" once the world emerges from the economic recession will have disastrous results.

Global energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions will rise by 45 per cent by 2030, the price of oil will rise to 180 dollars per barrel and over one billion people will be living on less than one dollar a day by 2015, the UNEP report cautions.

The report argues that the only way to revitalize the economy on a sustained basis is to re-focus towards investments in clean technologies and "natural" infrastructure such as forests and soils, thus combating climate change and triggering an employment boom in the 21st century.

Edward Barbier, the author of the Global Green New Deal report, said that only through focusing on such a path would the world be able to avoid future economic disaster.

"The world economy is going through a massive heart attack," he said. "We have to focus on reviving the patient but also making sure the patient avoids further crises."

Barbier pointed to plans for green investment in President Barack Obama's stimulus plan and also other schemes in South Korea and China, which he said could create several million jobs, as showing it was possible to change direction.

UNEP's 2009 Year Book, released simultaneously with the Global Green New Deal report, highlighted the many problems being faced by the environment.

The year book said arctic sea ice levels had dropped dramatically - raising fears of rising sea levels.

It also highlighted an increase in the frequency of natural disasters from about 100 events per decade in the early 20th century to 3,000 per decade in the early 1990s. (dpa)