New Delhi, July 2 (IANS) Though the Rio Earth Summit held last month did not come up with any major outcomes, but it did provide a wide canvas of concepts and directions on what the world could adopt for sustainable development, experts including TERI director R.K. Pachauri, said here Monday.
The experts also said that India should prepare a set of sustainable development goals for the world and if it does not then the developed countries would do so.
Speaking at a discussion on ‘Rio 20 Plus – The Way Forward’, the experts outlined eight major opportunities that the summit had thrown up.
The opportunities included engaging major stakeholders, including governments, in developing and implementing sustainable development opportunities; putting in place a mechanism for energy access to all countries, especially in the context of India; and a new mechanism and matrix for measuring natural resources and their depletion.
Enunciating the sustainable development goals and motivating stakeholders, including the business community, and establishing regional, national and sub-national and local initiatives is also needed to implement the provisions of the Rio +20 Summit, the speakers said.
Another major challenge discussed was to deal effectively with the challenge of climate change and problems such as deforestation and loss of biodiversity as well as the problem of desertification, land degradation and drought.
The recent Rio Earth Summit was different from the 1992 summit in that it saw the presence of a large number of participants from the corporate world, said Pachauri.
Although access to energy is one of the main concerns of the world, it is linked to climate change, said Ambassador C. Das Gupta, distinguished fellow, the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).
“It is important in the field of energy to differentiate which is a developed country and a developing country,” he said.
Besides Pachauri and Das Gupta, the other speakers were Leena Srivastava, executive director, TERI, Nitin Desai, distinguished fellow, TERI, and Prodipto Ghosh, distinguished fellow, of the organisation.
