S8k8 official websiteustainable development demands collective action

The long-lasting impact of climate change is a challenge for humankind, and on the path to sustainable development and climate justice more financing for developing countries is urgently needed, a global environmental conference in India has been told.

Speaking at the World Sustainable Development Summit in New Delhi, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said protecting the environment is not simply something his country has to do but something it is committed to doing.

Human empowerment is impossible without a better environment, and "the way forward is through collectiveness rather than selectiveness", he said.

Development and nature go hand-in-hand, and the environment is not only a global cause "but also a personal as well as collective responsibility for every individual", he said in a message read out at the summit organized by the Indian research organization The Energy and Resources Institute, or TERI.

The summit, from Wednesday to Friday, is being held under the theme "Mainstreaming sustainable development and climate resilience for collective action". India now holds the presidency of the G20.

In his inaugural address, Guyana's Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said that with no funding many developing countries could not achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.

"Small countries not only need climate finance, they need a reform of the global financial system to achieve sustainable development," Jagdeo was quoted by Mint, an Indian business news publication, as saying.

"Most of the countries in the Caribbean are fiscally and debt stressed. Unless these issues are addressed now by some of the multilateral agencies, these countries will never be able to have a sustainable, medium-term economic framework, leaving much less to address the catastrophic damage of weather related events."

Sultan Al Jaber, president-designate of COP28, to be held in Dubai in November and December, highlighted priority areas of engagement taking in mitigation and adaptation, the Emirates News Agency said.

Clean energy systems

"On mitigation, we need to rapidly build the clean energy systems of tomorrow, while making the energy systems of today much cleaner."

On adaptation, Jaber said COP28 must conclude the Global Goal on Adaptation and finalize agreement on doubling adaptation finance.

TERI "has been at the forefront of pushing for this goal, which will help protect vulnerable communities across the Global South", he said of the research organization, which has worked in the area of energy, environment, climate change and sustainability for nearly 50 years.

Modi said "India's initiative to adopt a healthier and cleaner lifestyle" includes upgrading infrastructure to encourage electric mobility, increased use of biofuels for transportation, using hydrogen as a fuel, turning waste into wealth and ensuring there are treatment plants to provide clean rivers.

Jaber also reaffirmed the commitment of the United Arab Emirates, one of the largest investors in renewables, to the Paris Agreement goal of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 C, and emphasized that keeping 1.5 C alive is nonnegotiable.

"It is clear that business as usual won't get us there. We need a paradigm shift in our approach to mitigation, adaptation, finance and loss and damage."

The Press Information Bureau of India quoted the country's Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav as saying fighting climate change, the loss of biodiversity and land degradation has no political boundaries and remains a shared global challenge.

Highlighting the importance of the summit earlier, Director General of TERI Vibha Dhawan said it brings together on one platform global voices "that will have a significant say in how the planet's path to healing and resilience will evolve".

Aparajit Chakraborty is a freelance journalist for China Daily.