DPA
New Delhi - While slow-moving governments drag their feet, everyone - individuals, communities and businesses - should act now on climate change, according to the consensus at a summit on sustainable development that opened in the Indian capital Thursday. A gathering of leaders from India, the Scandinavian countries, the Maldives, international agencies and sector professionals are attending the three-day summit on climate change and sustainable development India's The Energy Resources Institute (TERI).
The wealthier nations that are responsible for most emissions should play a greater role, specially by transferring technology and financing mitigation in the developing world, participants said.
Several speakers stressed the importance of reaching an equitable post-Kyoto protocol at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change sponsored meeting at Copenhagen in 2009.
The Delhi Development Summit is an annual event organized by the Delhi-based energy research institute TERI, led by RK Pachauri, who is also chairman of the UNFCC which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for its role in making climate change a global issue.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said India was committed to taking steps on climate change and would never let its emissions exceed that of developed countries. But he also said it was necessary to ensure an acceptable level of development for all Indians.
"The world has to address this (mitigation) in such a way that we do not have to choose between development and environment. We have to have both," Norway Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said.
"We have to create mechanisms for the rich world to transfer technology and financial resources to help mitigation in the developing world otherwise there will not be big enough advances," he said.
The leaders also said the role of business was important because the corporate sector realized there was money to be made by going green. Government policy could help this process.
Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, his counterpart from Denmark Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the presidents of Iceland Olafur Ragnar Grimsson and Maldives Maumoon Abdul Gayoom took part in the panel discussion.
Gayoom was awarded TERI's Sustainable Development Leadership award for 2008 for his pioneering work on alerting the world to climate change. He dedicated the award to the people of Maldives, an island community which was among those most in danger from climate change impacts like rising sea levels, he said.
"The challenge is huge. We have less than two years to draft an agreement to measure up to what science is telling us," UNFCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer said in his keynote address. The summit ends on Saturday.
World leaders urge action on climate change at Delhi summit
