World Sustainable Development Summit 2022

In News

• The PM inaugurated The Energy and Resources Institute’s (TERI) latest edition of the 21st World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) that deliberated on the planetary resilience in wake of the multitude of extreme weather events across the globe in recent years. 

About

• Theme: ‘Towards a Resilient Planet: Ensuring a Sustainable and Equitable Future’.
• The WSDS 2022 is a three-day summit organized by TERI with participation from over 100 nations.
• The next climate conference COP 27 will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
• Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend.
  • The Brundtland Commission, formerly the World Commission on Environment and Development, was a sub-organization of the United Nations (UN) that aimed to unite countries in pursuit of sustainable development.

Issues

• It includes a range of pressing issues from climate change, sustainable production and energy transitions to global commons and resource security, among others.
• Energy requirements of the people of India is expected to double in the next 20 years.
• Successful climate action also needs adequate financing. For this, developed countries need to fulfill their commitments on finance and technology transfer.

Significance of this summit

• It is a platform where stakeholders from across the world sit together to deliberate on solutions that are based on sustainability and green growth.
• TERI is a pioneer in these areas and WSDS 2022 will play a crucial part in accentuating our role in providing technological, policy as well as knowledge solutions as India works towards realizing the commitments made at COP26.

Initiatives taken by the Government 

• Through the International Solar Alliance, India’s aim is One Sun, One World, and One Grid.
  • We must work towards ensuring availability of clean energy from a worldwide grid everywhere at all times.
• Through Ujjwala Yojana, more than 90 million households have been provided access to clean cooking fuel.
• Under the PM-KUSUM scheme renewable energy has been taken to the farmers.
  • We are encouraging farmers to set up solar panels, use them and sell surplus power to the grid.
• Focus on ‘chemical-free natural farming’ will also help promote sustainability and equity.
• The LED bulbs distribution scheme has been running for over seven years and has helped save over 220 billion units of electricity and 180 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year.
• The National Hydrogen Mission is also in the limelight which aims to tap into green hydrogen, an exciting technology to power the future.
• The Aravalli Biodiversity Park in Haryana has been declared an OECM site for its effective conservation of biodiversity.
  • Issued by the IUCN, an OECM tag (other effective area-based conservation measures) is conferred upon areas of rich biodiversity, outside of protected areas like national parks and sanctuaries, for effective in-situ conservation.
• India now has 49 Ramsar sites spread over more than 1 million hectares. Restoring degraded land has been one of our main focus areas.
• Since 2015, India has restored more than 11.5 million hectares.
  • We are on track to achieve the national commitment of Land Degradation Neutrality under the Bonn Challenge.
• Environmental movement LIFE (Lifestyle for Environment): LIFE is about making lifestyle choices to improve our planet. It’ll be a coalition of like-minded people across the world who will promote sustainable lifestyles.

Way Forward

• India believes in fulfilling commitments under the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the country has raised its ambitions during CoP-26 at Glasgow.

Source: BS