NEW DELHI ? Once more, frustration with stymied efforts on climate change has emerged as a major theme at an international conference on the planet?s health. Opening the 13th annual Delhi Sustainable Development Summit conference this week, India?s prime minister noted that similar sentiments surfaced last year at the United Nations Rio+20 meeting, which marked the two-decade anniversary of a landmark Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Rio+20 was a ?poignant reminder that the ambitious goals that we had set for ourselves?? are ?far from being realized,??Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the heads of state, government ministers and delegates gathered here on Wednesday.
In a panel discussion on the theme ??Defining the Future We Want,?? Jean Charest, a former premier of Quebec, suggested that states, cities and provinces are now addressing climate change in ways that many national leaders are not. Maybe heads of state and national legislatures can be ?embarrassed into action by other levels of government,? he said.
Quebec has led the way nationally in Canada by adopting tighter auto car emission standards, just as California has been a pathbreaker in the United States.
John Prescott, a former British deputy prime minister and member of Parliament, spoke angrily about the slow pace of change and the need for political will. ?We can?t continue talking at all these conferences!? he declared from the podium.
Mr. Prescott even sniped at last week?s World Economic Forum in Davos and its theme of ?resilient dynamism.? ??What the hell does that mean?? he asked. The most important global issue, he said, is at hand here in New Delhi ?This is the place where it really matters,?? he said.
With a rapidly growing population of 1.2 billion already stretching the country?s resources, sustainability is a pressing matter in India. Like other developing countries, it already bears much of the brunt of global climate change, including weather extremes like drought and severe flooding as well as severe pollution.
In Asia over all,some 650 million people in Asia lack access to clean fuel for cooking and heating and tend to rely on fires made from wood and dung, emitting soot that contributes significantly to global warming.
No country or region can address the risks posed by climate change wholly on its own, Prime Minister Singh told the conference delegates. The challenge ?can only be tackled through coordinated global action,?? he said. ?It is therefore crucial to look at sustainable development from a global rather than a purely national perspective.??
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