Indian Economy, 5th edition (94 page)

Along with efforts to incorporate sustainability in the rural development process, India is increasingly making efforts to integrate the three pillars of sustainable development into its national policy space. In fact, environment protection is enshrined in our Constitution (Articles 48 A and 51 A [g]). Various policy measures are being implemented across the domains of forestry, pollution control, water management, clean energy, and marine and coastal environment. Some of these are policies like Joint Forest Management, Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment, Coastal Zone Regulation Zone, Eco Labelling and Energy Efficiency Labelling, Fuel Efficiency Standards etc. Over a period of time, a stable organisational structure has been developed for environment protection. The country has been making fast progress in increasing its renewable energy capacity and has displayed the fastest expansion rate of investment of any large renewables market in the world in 2011, with a 62 per cent increase to $12 billion (Frankfurt School of Finance and Management
‘Global Trends in Renewable Energy investment 2012’
). The 12th Plan with a prominent focus on sustainability makes provision and provides for many more opportunities like these.

Working on the social and economic pillars (sustainable development policies, programmes and targeted schemes) have been introduced to eradicate poverty either through a direct focus on economic indicators like employment generation, youth mobilisation, and building up assets of the poor; or indirectly through social indicators of human development with emphasis on health, education, and women’s empowerment. As per the
Census-2011
, many parameters on this front have shown improvement, however, India is still not on target to meet some key MDGs by 2015.

•
The
poverty
head-count ratio declined by 7.3 percentage points from 2004-5 to 2009-10;

•
The
MMR
(maternal mortality rate) dropped from 301 per 100,000 live births in 2001-3 to 212 in 2007-9; and

•
literacy
rates have been constantly rising and are estimated to be 82.14 per cent for men and 65.46 per cent for women.

Over the years, arguments in favour of looking beyond the conventional measure of GDP and taking into account the environmental damage caused by production of goods and services received attention. An expert group under the chairmanship of Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta has been set up to develop a framework for ‘Green National Accounts’ for India. In fact, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) under the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (
MOSPI
) has been publishing comprehensive environment statistics since 1997. The process of putting in place a system for natural resources accounting was initiated by MOSPI way back in 2002.

Despite all these efforts, the reality that confronts us on the environmental front continues to be harsh and complex. Increasing population, urbanisation, and growing demand for water and land resources have severely impacted the quality and availability of water and soil resources. Rising energy needs is another area of concern. Besides, rapid growth will require corresponding growth in energy supply.

Presently, a large share of our energy demand is met through coal and oil and this trend will continue, given the unprecedented surge in energy demand and resource constraints. Energy issues become more complex with existing energy poverty and rise in energy prices. There is considerable scope for increasing efficiency in the use of energy and water in India together with other development indicators like infant mortality rate, MMR, sanitation facilities, and public health services. Economic instruments, regulatory measures, and market mechanisms can play an important role in helping to achieve development and growth in a sustainable manner.

INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION
AND EFFORTS

Admitting the well-founded concerns on the need to redress environmental problems, there were global calls for cooperation, action, and innovation. World leaders in 2012 continued to engage and deliberate in international forums dedicated to climate and environment and also in forums like the G20 where sustainable development and climate change were an integral part of the discussions. Ambition or goal setting to reach targets, provision of finance and technology for developing countries, and institutions and mechanisms for capacity building were the common threads of negotiations running through all these forums. Some of the high-profile events which the world was watching are discussed in the following paragraphs.  

Rio + 20

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), was held in June 2012, at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, (also known as
Rio+20
) and was attended at the heads of states level. The objective of the Rio+20 Conference was to secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development, review progress made and identify implementation gaps, and assess new and emerging challenges since the UNCSD held 20 years ago in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Towards the end, the Conference had two
themes
–

1.
Green economy in the context of sustainable development & poverty eradication; and

2.
Institutional framework for sustainable development.

The most significant outcomes of the Rio Summit have been the restoration of the principles of equity and of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) in the global environmental discourse and placing poverty eradication at the centre of the global development agenda. The
outcome
also ensures the required domestic policy space to countries on a green economy and launched four processes/ mechanisms, i.e. developing SDGs, financing strategy, technology transfer, and defining the format and organisational aspects of the proposed high- level political forum to follow up on the implementation of sustainable development.

‘Fairness’
as an issue received attention. It is a matter of satisfaction and achievement for India that the Rio outcome document reaffirms equity and the principle of CBDR among other Rio principles. India together with other developing countries played an instrumental role in this. CBDR is especially important for developing countries, as it implies that while all countries should take sustainable development actions, the developed countries have to take the leading role in environmental protection, as they have contributed the most to environmental problems. Also they should support developing countries with finance and technology in their sustainable development efforts. India has always held that the eradication of poverty should be the overarching goal of sustainable development. This was given due recognition in the deliberations at the Rio Summit and in the outcome document.

On the issue of
Green Economy
, the outcome document affirms that there are different approaches, visions, models, and tools available to each country, in accordance with its national circumstances and priorities, for achieving sustainable development. It identifies green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication as one of the important tools for achieving sustainable development but specifies that while it could provide options for policy-making it should not be a rigid set of rules. The outcome document clearly states what green economy policies should result in and what they should not. It is a matter of satisfaction that the document firmly rejects prescriptive policies, unilateral measures, and trade barriers as well as unwarranted conditionality on
ODA
(Official Developmental Assistance) in this context.

The Rio+20 Conference will also be remembered for kick-starting the process on developing SDGs. The SDGs would address and incorporate in a balanced way, all the three dimensions of sustainable development and their inter-linkages. The SDGs would be universal, global, and voluntary. Since the SDGs are expected to become a part of the post-2015 UN development agenda, they would hopefully guide the international community towards inclusive sustainable development.

From India’s point of view, SDGs need to bring together development and environment into a single set of targets. The fault line, as ever in global conferences, is the inappropriate balance between environment and development. Developing countries do not want any bindings on their efforts towards poverty eradication or any agreement that comes with such a price tag. Therefore, we could also view the SDGs and the post 2015 agenda as an opportunity for revisiting and fine-tuning the MDG framework and sustainably regaining focus on developmental issues. India and many developing countries are slow or off track in achieving targets under some of the MDGs, which have concrete areas of overlap between environment and development. This is another reason why these MDGs should continue to be a part of the post 2015 global policy architecture.
5

The
Rio Summit did not lead to any specific commitments on the finance and technology
front. The developed countries, having obligations and responsibilities, need to commit to provision of adequate public funds including for transfer of technology and capacity building to developing countries. There has been no mention of provision of new and additional financial resources by developed countries, something that India would have wanted to see. Any new green economy and sustainable development goals would be meaningless without new money and technology commitments on the table. Nevertheless, we may hope that the follow up process of Rio + 20 on both finance and technology will keep these issues alive leading to some new strategies and mechanisms.

While developing countries remain disappointed with the outcome document on means of implementation, they managed to secure many of their key positions and demands in the negotiations. It says a lot about the current international situation that a reaffirmation of principles made 20 years ago is a sign of success. Convention on Biological Diversity 12.22 Global concerns about biodiversity found expression in the CBD adopted in 1992. The objectives of the Convention are: conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. The Convention has near universal membership with 193 countries. The USA is the only major country that is not a part of it. Following the ratification of the CBD, India also enacted the Biological Diversity Act in 2002 and notified the Rules in 2004 to give effect to the provisions of the CBD.

Being committed to the cause, India successfully hosted the COP 11 to the CBD, and the sixth Conference of the Parties serving as Meeting of the Parties (CoP/MoP-6) to the CBD’s Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety in Hyderabad from 8-19 October 2012. The event provided India an opportunity to consolidate, scale up, and showcase its initiatives and strengths on biodiversity. One of the most important outcomes is the commitment of the Parties to doubling the total biodiversity-related international financial resource flows to developing countries by 2015 and at least maintaining this level until 2020. This will translate into additional financial flows to the developing countries to the tune of about US $ 30 billion over the next eight years.