President Donald Ramotar this week joined Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the opening of the 13th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS), under the theme ‘The Global Challenge of Resource Efficient Growth and Development’, according to a release from the Office of the President.
Guyana was invited for a third year to participate in the DSDS by Dr. R.K Pachauri, Nobel Prize Laureate, Director-General, The Energy and Research Institute (TERI) and recently appointed Chairman of the Iwokrama Board of Trustees. President Ramotar, former President Bharrat Jagdeo and Shyam Nokta from the Office of the President represented Guyana.
The release said that following on from the Rio+20 Conference in June 2012, DSDS 2013 is providing a vital forum to probe the need for the global community to move towards higher efficiency in the use of resources in general and the low carbon path. President Ramotar participated in a Leadership Panel which discussed ‘Defining the future we want.’ The Panel was chaired by Ambassador C. Dasgupta, Distinguished Fellow from TERI and included Anote Tong, President of Kiribati, James Alex Michel, President of Seychelles and Dr. Pachauri.
According to the release, both Prime Minister Singh and President Ramotar stressed the need to maintain the world’s focus on poverty alleviation and equity. Ramotar said that without this focus, it will not be possible to tackle climate change because the world’s poor would not be included in the solution.
He stressed the need for partnerships and spoke on Guyana’s climate initiatives and the lessons being learnt from the Low Carbon Deve-lopment Strategy (LCDS) and the support being provided by Norway to the implementation of the LCDS.
He also emphasised “the importance of forests to climate change mitigation and the need to identify approaches that would allow countries to maintain their forests and natural resources for the good of the global community but at the same time not compromise their ability to promote sustained economic (growth at) the national and local level.”
The release said that Lord John Prescott, Former British Deputy Prime Minister also spoke of the importance of strong political will to address those who seek to prevent progress on climate change and low carbon development.
The DSDS, organised annually by TERI since 2001, provides a platform for knowledge exchange and debate on all aspects of sustainable development.
