Tag: GS Paper – 3: Environmental Pollution & Degradation; Disaster Management; Food Security.
Exam View:
The Leaders’ Declaration; Green Development Pact; Foundations of the Pact; The four-part relay.
Context:
The new GDP, Green Development Pact, can serve as a bridge between the Global South and the North.
Decoding the editorial: The Leaders’ Declaration
- In the G20 Leaders’ Summit, the adoption of the Leaders’ Declaration on the first day.
- It is a sign that India could bridge divisions and deliver a cooperative and collaborative outcome, rather than a combative stalemate, at a time when multilateralism seemed particularly fractured.
- The 83-paragraph Declaration, with consensus among all member countries, underscores peace, prosperity, people and the planet, and bringing it all together is an important pact.
Green Development Pact
- The G20 comprises the world’s largest economies accounting for over 80% of global gross domestic product (GDP).
- Through the Leaders’ Declaration, however, New Delhi has given “GDP” a new meaning, a Green Development Pact.
- This does not choose between development and environment but seeks to align people-centric growth with planetary sustainability.
Foundations of the Pact
- It focuses on resource efficiency and sustainable consumption.
- The G20 unanimously adopted the High Level Principles on Lifestyles for Sustainable Development.
- It’s a push for sustainable lifestyles to lower our resource footprints and it sends out the signal to create circular economies at scale, from metals and minerals to plastics and packaging.
- The emphasis on an inclusive energy transition.
- This is crucial for bringing the energy transition closer to people.
- The pact endorses a target to triple renewable energy capacity and notes the voluntary action plan to double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030.
- It announces a Global Biofuels Alliance.
- It seeks transparent and resilient global markets for hydrogen.
- And it calls for diversified and responsible supply chains for critical minerals and semiconductors.
- It focuses on climate and sustainable finance.
- The Leaders’ Declaration finally endorses the need for trillions of dollars for the billions of people living in the Global South, in particular $5.9 trillion needed by developing countries to achieve their climate targets by 2030, as well as $4 trillion needed per year for clean energy.
- Recognising the importance of leveraging the role of multilateral development banks, the pact calls for blended finance and risk-sharing facilities.
- It links the triple planetary crises by drawing attention not only to the climate crisis but also reducing plastic pollution and preserving biodiversity.
- These include the G20 Global Land Initiative to reduce land degradation, the HighLevel Principles for a Sustainable and Resilient Blue/Ocean-based Economy, and sharing of best global practices on water.
- It focuses on building disaster-resilient infrastructure.
- India introduced a Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group into the G20.
- It will be incumbent on member countries, all of whom have faced weather extremes, to ensure robust early warning systems and include people as stakeholders in and enablers of resilient infrastructure.
The four-part relay
- While there is a language to phase down unabated coal power, efforts to get an agreement on a phase-down of all fossil fuels could not get consensus.
- If these seeming contradictions have to be squared, the G20 Leaders’ Summit must be viewed as the first leg of a four-part relay.
- India has kicked off this race with a comprehensive Leaders’ Declaration, which includes the Green Development Pact.
- The next leg is the UN General Assembly and the UN SDG Summit next week, when non-G20 leaders can propose their visions for doubling down on the energy transition and climate sustainability.
- Next, the baton will pass to the World Bank annual meetings in Marrakech in October.
- G20 leaders have called for the reform of the MDBs.
- Close to $200 billion of additional lending could be possible with the proposed reforms.
- The anchor of the race will be the COP28 climate meetings in Dubai in November-December.
There is a need for effective multilateralism and hard resources to show solidarity with the vulnerable and commit to the planet.
Source:https://epaper.hindustantimes.com/Home/ShareArticle?OrgId=1597b5de6bd&imageview=0
