Dhaka lauded at Delhi summit

Sustainable and renewable energy is the future and time has come to enhance international cooperation to facilitate its supply for all as one in every five people still lack access to electricity, said experts yesterday.

Stressing exploring options for renewable energy, they said the policymakers should focus on reducing carbon intensity of energy.

Still three billion people rely on biomass for cooking and heating which is a dominant contributor to greenhouse gas emission, they added.

The experts were addressing a session, “Mainstreaming sustainable development goal 7: Affordable and clean energy for all” on the first day of a four-day World Sustainable Development Summit in New Delhi.

The Energy and Resource Institute organised the summit in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with the slogan “Beyond 2015: People Planet and Progress”.

President Pranab Mukherjee is going to formally inaugurate the summit today. 

WSDS is among the first international platforms to discuss the new development agenda following the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the signing of the Paris Agreement at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21).

Many developing countries including Bangladesh achieved remarkable success in using solar energy, said Rachel Kyte, chief executive officer and special representative of an organisation, Sustainable Energy for All.

“If some particular government go for coal fired power plant at this moment that would be an individual incident. But in general all countries including India are focusing more and more on renewable energy,” she said.

The renewable energy market is getting competitive and is cheaper than before, she added in a keynote speech in the renewable energy session.

Speakers in some sessions said Bangladesh was an example for developments like eliminating open defecation and providing loan to landless ultra-poor people. “India is learning from Bangladesh about how to get success in eliminating open defecation,” said Vijay Kumar, former director of National Wastelands Development Mission, at a luncheon interaction on the theme of rural development and poverty reduction.

Dr Ajay Mathur, director-general, Teri, said, “We all hope this summit proves to be the time when we are able to take action from a few to the most. This will largely come from action by the government, civil society, businesses, and the public at large.”

Some of the key thematic sessions deliberated on challenging issues including climate resilient agriculture, energy costs in India's context, mainstreaming affordable and clean energy and creating stronger linkages between climate risks and policy and practice.

Helping the transition to low global warming potentials refrigerants and higher efficiencies, using multi-stakeholder simulations to examine impacts of food policy choices in India and Asia and mainstreaming biodiversity for responsible business also came up for discussion.

These sessions were in partnership with World Bank, European Union, International Finance Corporation, UNDP, CARIAA, Ingersoll Rand and International Union for Conservation of Nature, among others.