The Future of Sustainability

Speaker: Shri Surya P. Sethi, UNESCO Chair Professor Climate Science & Policy; and former Principal Advisor Power & Energy and Core Climate Negotiator to Government of India; Shri Sethi is widely recognized for his expertise in contemporary development issues in a resource and climate constrained world

 

Chair: Shri Shyam Saran, Life Trustee, IIC

 

Climate action has been reduced to the art of wordsmithing what Climate Science is confirming with greater and greater certainty. The Paris accord is a weak response to mankind’s greatest contemporary challenge. Global emissions continue to rise and even the two-degree centigrade warming bound looks increasingly unachievable under more stringent probability assumptions. The global partnership for eradication of poverty and the primacy of development for the bottom half of the world, both recognized as being essential to any definition of a sustainable future, has been floundering since 1970.  The means of implementation, namely finance, technology and capacity have been missing.  At least 60% of fellow Indians remain highly vulnerable and lack adequate adaptive capacity to bear the consequences of global warming.  Access to basic needs that ensure a threshold level of well-being, including modern commercial energy remains a major determinant of such adaptive capacity.  How can India ensure such adaptive capacity for all Indians for a sustainable future?