Need to address Paris accord friction to achieve climate goals: Suresh Prabhu

The discord regarding the Paris accord – after the US withdrew from it – needs to be sorted out to achieve climate goals in testing times of pandemic that has hit global economy, threatened food and energy security and disrupted value chains and medical supplies, said India’s Sherpa to G20 2022 Suresh Prabhu.

Reaching out to governments and business organisations of the world’s 20 leading economies – the G20 and B20, Prabhu said, at a virtual conference titled ‘B20 Global Dialogue in India’, that companies need to help in achieving climate goals as well as in removing digital disparities.

“The business community needs to focus on not just the bottom line, but also lifting the people at the bottom of the pyramid,” said former Union minister Prabhu, stressing on building quality infrastructure.

The conference was organised on Wednesday by Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), in collaboration with CII and the Indian National Science Academy. Prof. Sachin Chaturvedi, Director General, RIS, said the RIS was engaged in converging the ideas put forward by stakeholders including businesses, scientists, economists and civil society groups to ensure that it would be easier for policy makers to absorb and implement them at the G20 level. He said the RIS has been bringing out a bi-monthly publication ‘the G20 Digest’ on G20 issues as part of generating meaningful inputs for India’s G20 Presidency in 2022, in addition to taking part in the T20 (Think-Tank) process at the G20, he added. RIS Chairman Dr Mohan Kumar also participated in the programme.

Earlier, Prabhu stressed on the need to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 (net-zero greenhouse gas emissions) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, assuring that India’s approach to solving global problems will be to follow its philosophy of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (‘the world is one family’).

He referred to India hosting the G20 Summit in 2022 and said the country will set its own priorities for summit but will carry forward the work done by other countries that held G20 Presidency.

Rahul Chhabra, Secretary (Economic Relations), Ministry of External Affairs, referred to the recent B20 report to the G20 and said the immediate need was to revive the international economy by making the global supply chains resilient as well as by reviving productive sectors. He said despite the need to fulfil the huge domestic demand, India has kept its medical supply chains open and provided generic drugs and medical equipment to several countries. During the ongoing pandemic, India also helped other countries with rapid response teams, information exchange platforms and healthcare training through webinars, besides taking forward the G20’s ‘debt service suspension initiative’ by supporting several countries in this regard.

Yousef Abdullah Al-Benyan, B20 Saudi Arabia Chairman, said Saudi Arabia, during its G20 Presidency, has prioritised increasing the participation of women in business as well as addressing issues relating to climate change, infrastructure finance as well as trade and investment.

(Reported by Rahul Chhabra)