Germany today offered to open a new chapter of cooperation with India on environment issues. It suggested finding economic solutions to ecological problems and vice versa so that the fundamental right to development is not denied.
The visiting German minister for environment, nature conservation and nuclear safety, Sigmar Gabriel underscored the need for solutions packages for green development which combine advice on creating the required legal and institutional framework, concept development, feasibility assessment, financing options, planning, supervision and implementation of projects and operating and management plans.
Addressing the India-German Environment Forum in Delhi on Tuesday on the theme – Dialogues: Solutions for Green Growth – Gabriel said: “From the funds available to the German Environment Ministry in 2008 from auctioning of allowances from emission trading, Germany is providing an additional 120 million Euro per year worldwide for climate protection projects in developing and newly industrializing countries. These are new and additional financial resources, on top of the funding for development cooperation provided by taxpayers’ money. This enables our environment and energy cooperation with India to be further expanded.”
He assured that this was a starting point and Germany was willing to expand the level of finance to help developing countries to both mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.
He noted that India was a very important player in the global CDM regime and Germany’s most important CDM partner country. He invited India to be founding member of International Agency for Renewable Energies (IRENA) to be set up in Bonn on January 26, 2009 for supporting member states for adapting political framework, capacity building an improving financing and technology transfer for renewable energies. He suggested accessing information on waste management technology from German RETech Initiative website. He said German Water Partnership has been set up for sustainable and safe management of this natural resource.
“Modern day environment policy that will drive innovation, growth and employment should consist of three basic principles. One, prices must reflect the truth ? prices are an indicator of scarcity and should not ignore the ecological truth. Two, We must intelligently combine instruments from the supply and the demand side. It is the interplay between a good policy framework on the supply side and an active demand which really helps innovative technologies achieve a breakthrough and three, calculable framework conditions and benchmarks need to be secured. This is an important component of a policy which balances planning certainty and dynamic development,” Gabriel said.
The two-day Indo-German Environment Forum programme is jointly organised by the industry body, FICCI, German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, India’s Ministry of Environment & Forests and the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business.
Gabriel cautioned against lowering of sights with regard to the environment and climate protection in the wake of the current global financial crisis. Focussing exclusively on overcoming the crisis would not only expose the world to unchecked climate change and the substantial subsequent costs, it would also rib us of the major economic opportunities presented by an ecological industrial policy.
Indications of future scarcities, Gabriel said, were already emerging. At current consumption levels, coal will last for about 200 years, conventional oil and gas for another 62 years and petroleum for 43 years. Even nuclear power has no future since the current economically viable use of uranium reserves can only continue for another 40 years.
Indian minister of state for environment and forests, Sevugan Regupathy, pointed out that with India witnessing one of the fastest economic growth rates in the world over the last decade, conservation efforts need to be unstinted and constant. Areas such as promotion of energy efficiency, renewable energy, pollution abatement, mass transport and environmental infrastructure need massive R&D efforts which need a comprehensive approach with much larger private participation. The regulatory capacity of environmental agencies needs to be developed in a much greater way in order to meet the upcoming challenges, he said.