By IRNA,
New Delhi : 11th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit -2011 kicked off Thursday in New Delhi.
Three-day meet, organised by the Energy Research Institute, was inaugurated by India’s Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Seychelles President James Alix Michel and Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez are the main speakers at the summit.
With a theme of ‘Tapping Local Initiatives and Tackling Global Inertia’, the summit will discuss ways to address the problem of climate change through local initiatives.
Small island-states which are facing the biggest challenge from global warming are at the focus of the summit. It is the first major global meeting after the Cancun climate summit in December 2010.
Meanwhile, inaugurating the summit, India’s Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh while pitching for environmentally benign progress, today favoured proper enforcement of regulatory standards to prevent green damage while making sure that there is no return to the license permit raj system.
He also backed the ‘polluter must pay’ principle to deal with the issue of residual pollution that may be caused despite regulation.
Singh’s remarks come in the wake of the environment ministry raising the red flag recently over several multi-billion dollar projects citing violation of green norms.
On climate change, the Prime Minister said industrialized nations have to make clear commitments on emission reduction targets to ensure that the goals set at the Copenhagen climate summit were met.
‘India, China and many other developing countries have all responded with significant voluntary goals and specific plans on emission intensity reduction,’ Singh said.
‘If we have to tackle global inertia, we will need to see clear commitments from the industrial countries on emission reduction targets for 2020 that are consistent with the Copenhagen goal of containing the likely temperature increase to no more than 2 degree centigrade or less,’ he said.
‘We do not as yet have a response from the industrialized countries which is consistent with meeting that objective,’ Singh said.
The Delhi Sustainable Development Summit, organized annually by the Energy Research Institute since 2001, is an international undertaking that provides a platform for knowledge exchange and debate on all aspects of sustainable development.
Over the past ten years, it has emerged as one of the most important forums on global sustainability issues, with a focus on developing world solutions.