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Mr. Y. C. Deveshwar, Chairman of the Sustainability Summit,
Dr. Ashok Khosla, Co-Chairman of the Sustainability Summit,
His Excellency, John McCarthy, High Commissioner, Australia
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to be here today to inaugurate the 2nd Sustainability Summit with its focus on ‘Partnerships for Action’.
The theme of the Summit is testimony to the commitment of the participants gathered here and the organizers to harness the energies of key stakeholders to make growth inclusive and sustainable. This also reflects the growing recognition that the social and environmental challenges facing us in the 21st century are so complex and so multi-dimensional that they can only be solved if government, NGOs and industry work together effectively. Increasingly our combined efforts and resources have to channelised to not only preserve but refresh our eco-system.
Sustainable development is now an accepted term in our lexicon. However, it has meant different things to different people. There are many who think sustainable development is synonymous with environmental protection. This is of course only a third of the truth. Equally important are the pillars of economic and social development.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The concept of sustainable development was first mooted in the 1980s and then embedded into our collective consciousness at the Rio Summit of 1992. While its origins are in the concept of environment protection, sustainable development encompasses within itself a much wider gamut of issues. The World Summit 2005, highlighted the interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars of sustainable development which are economic development, social development, and environmental protection. In that sense the concept of sustainable development pervades almost all aspects of our life including the future.
India’s approach to the challenge of the protection of our environment was shaped by the perceptive observations of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who told the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972 that "poverty was the worst polluter". In saying so, Indiraji launched a global debate on the relationship between poverty alleviation, economic growth, and environmental conservation. In the years since then, an organized structure of multilateral agreements and institutions for realizing the goal of sustainable development has been developed.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The World Summit on Sustainable Development held at Johannesburg in 2002 had clearly reaffirmed that addressing poverty was central to the efforts of developing countries in achieving sustainable development. India is a developing country and our overriding priorities are poverty eradication and rapid and inclusive economic development. For us, the concept of sustainable development must include the needs of our people for health, nutrition, education and housing so as to provide to all a life of dignity in a clean, safe and healthy environment. The "development" dimension of the concept of "sustainable development" is, therefore, critical. In fact, we should be clear that without development there can be no sustainable environmental protection.
The Government of India adopted the National Environmental Policy in 2006. It aims at creating an enabling domestic environment for sustainable development. This policy recognizes that human beings are at the centre of sustainable development and emphasizes that the right to development must equitably meet the developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations. Its dominant theme is that while we must conserve environmental resources to secure livelihoods, the most effective way of doing this is to ensure that people benefit more from conservation than from resource degradation.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
To sustain our projected GDP growth rate of 9%, we require more energy. Over 50% of our population, more than 500 million people, does not have access to electricity. The per-capita energy consumption is less than a third of the global average. For developing countries like us, a rapid increase in energy use per capita is imperative to realize our national development goals and the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals.
India is not a significant contributor to Green House Gases (GHG) emissions nor will it be so in the foreseeable future. Currently, India’s per capita GHG emissions are around a quarter of the global average. In aggregate terms, India with 17% of the World population has only 4% of global GHG emissions. Our energy intensity levels are also on par with most developed countries and have improved considerably over time. More-so, while economic growth over the last five years has been around 9%, commercial energy consumption has only grown by under 4%. We are also determined that, even as we pursue economic growth, our per capita GHG emissions will not increase beyond those of industrialized countries.
Ladies & Gentlemen,
We are facing today an unprecedented challenge in ensuring the energy security of our nation. Oil prices have touched USD 100 a barrel and indications are that it will further increase.
Our efforts at both energy security and sustainable development mean that we require the necessary policy space to address our energy needs in line with our resource endowments and national priorities. Demand side management, through targeted programmes, has brought to global levels, energy efficiency in India in a number of major energy intensive sectors – steel, aluminium, fertilizer, paper and cement. An Energy Efficiency Code for Buildings has been released for new commercial buildings and energy audit is being actively promoted.
We must have the option and the ability to tap all significant energy sources – whether conventional or advanced fossil fuels based, or renewables. With about 7,000 MW of installed wind-power, we now have the fourth highest wind capacity in the world. We are intensifying our efforts to enhance the use of solar energy and bio-fuels. We are also working to increase significantly the share of civil nuclear power in our energy mix. You all are well aware of the strong efforts being made by our government in this regard.
Even as we pursue our goal of harnessing nuclear and other forms of energy, we should not forget that much of India still relies on traditional biomass for their energy needs. There is an urgent need today to have greater R&D focusing on resource endowments of developing countries and transfer of advanced clean technologies to developing countries in a cost effective manner. Many existing critical technologies have also been out of reach of developing countries because of prohibitive cost, due largely to the existing IPRs regime, and technology denial regimes. These issues need to be addressed urgently.
Our international interlocutors tell us that under the existing IPRs regime, the private sector has legal rights over such technologies and so governments cannot do anything about it. We need, however, to bear in mind that all IPRs regimes are the realization of tradeoffs between providing incentives to the innovator, and imperatives of wider human society. We need to address the IPRs regime to ensure that technologies, which are necessary for pursuing the global goal of sustainable development, are available to developing countries. Collaborative R&D between industrialized and developing countries with sharing of the resulting IPRs, between institutions can help us achieve this.
Ladies & Gentlemen,
Even as we stand here discussing sustainable development, there is a major conference going on in Bali, Indonesia, on climate change. We are extremely concerned about climate change as all indications point to the fact that developing countries would bear a disproportionately severe impact of its adverse effects even though responsibility lies with those countries which have been polluting since industrialization. We have made it clear that in accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibility we expect the developed countries to commit themselves to significant binding emissions reductions. We have also made it clear that the need of the hour for developing countries is adapting to the inevitability of climate change. For that we need to have the necessary financial and technological wherewithal. And as we have always maintained, development would give us the necessary capability for adaptation.
Recognising the common threat of climate change to our region, only a few days ago on 7th December, in the 29th meeting of the SAARC Council of Ministers, we adopted the SAARC Declaration on Climate Change. SAARC believes that the way forward must include:
• Adequate resources to tackle climate change without detracting from development funds.
• Effective access to and funding assistance for the transfer of environment-friendly technologies and for adaptation.
• Binding GHG emission reduction commitments by developed countries with effective timeframes.
• Equitable burden-sharing.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Sustainable development requires sustainable patterns of production and consumption. We need to understand that for our efforts at environmental protection to really succeed, we must address the issue of unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, including lifestyles. In-fact, the core issue has to be to influence personal activities and choices to a more sustainable pattern, and the willingness of individuals and Governments to exercise preferences to a more sustainable consumption pattern especially in the developed countries.
The Indian development canvas is garangutan. We are acutely aware that the achievement of objectives will require tremendous efforts for resource mobilization, investment in infrastructure, improved allocative efficiency of resources, investment in social sectors and people’s participation. These challenges call for an enabling framework for sustainable development to be in place which is provided by our system of democratic governance, with an active civil society and media. This also includes devolution of power to states and local bodies and ensuring people’s participation in decision making. This structure makes for a compact between the state and the people constituting the most enduring partnership for sustainable development.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have great pleasure in inaugurating the 2nd Sustainability Summit. I wish the deliberations all success. I am sure the outcome of your discussion will be of great interest to policy makers.
Thank you.
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