Saturday, July 2, 2011

New Delhi


The government has constituted three committees to define green economy, which could be new international environmental paradigm in the next one year. This comes, despite environment minister Jairam Ramesh publicly announcing that an independent expert Partha Dasgupta of Cambridge University will
do the job.
The United Nations has defined green economy as low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive, and wants an international agreement by June 2012, when head of the states are expected to meet in Brazil.
The agreement on how to achieve green economy, for which a negotiating text is expected by end of this year, can re-define world economic growth pathway. The rich countries want carbon based approach where the developing world is seeking right to develop approach.
In this backdrop, Ramesh had announced that Dasgupta will head a committee to recommend green accounting norms for India and they will be applicable from 2015.
But, the government wanted deeper deliberations and constituted three inter-ministerial committees to deliberate on impact of proposed green economy in different sectors.
The first group deals with climate change, urban development and waste management. The second with agriculture, water, rural development and bio-diversity. The third is on impact of green economy norms in finance, taxation, trade, labour and technology transfer. "We are looking at an institutional framework to study impact of green economy as defined by UN," a government official said.
For this, the government has commissioned three independent studies. One of the studies to be done by the Madras School of Economics is on green accounting, the subject area of Dasgupta committee. Other studies are being done by The Energy and Resources Institute and MS Swaminathan Foundation.

Share/Bookmark