The
official Pakistani delegation that headed to the UN Conference on Sustainable
Development or the Rio+20 Summit, which took place in Rio De Janeiro this week,
included besides officials 15-year-old Ali Shahbaz, an O Levels student from
Lahore.
Ali was selected as a Youth Delegate from Pakistan by the Sustainable Development
Policy Institute (SDPI) who funded his air ticket and stay in Rio.
Earlier
last month, at the National Consultation on Green Economy in Islamabad that was
organised jointly by the Ministry of Climate Change, the One-UN Joint Programme
on Environment, SDPI, LEAD Pakistan and Heinrich Boell Stiftung, Ali had
impressed the audience with his confident speech. He had given an impassioned
plea, asking to be taken along to Rio as a youth ambassador representing the 60
per cent of Pakistan’s population who are under the age of 25. His speech
inspired everyone in the audience, including Tariq Banuri, the founder of the
SDPI who is now working for the UN headquarters in New York. In Tariq’s words,
here was “something to give one a sense of hope”.
Those of us
sitting in the audience urged Tariq, who was compiling the recommendations for
the Rio+20 process, to give Ali Shahbaz a chance to be heard in Rio. The Lahore
based architect Imrana Tiwana, who had been in touch with Ali for a few months
and had in fact brought him to the National Consultation in Islamabad, recalls:
“I first met Ali at the Beaconhouse school where I had been asked to give a
presentation as a member of the Lahore Bachao Tehreek (a group of architects,
urban planners and environmentalists who are trying to save Lahore’s trees from
being cut down). We stayed in touch over email and he was really determined to
go to the Rio Summit. I tried for months to get someone to sponsor him and
wrote to several businesses and even to the school he attends but no one came
forward. Then, I brought him along to Islamabad to the consultation and in less
than a month to go before the Rio conference, the SDPI agreed to sponsor him!”
Imrana
herself was nominated as an official delegate to represent Pakistan on sustainable
development, urbanisation and environment and last week, both she and Ali
finally made it to Rio. Ali discovered that he was the youngest official
delegate in an international conference hosting over 80,000 delegates in
addition to over 100 head of states. Ali participated in both the official
negotiations and a number of side events, including acting as a panellist in an
event hosted by the UN Education Caucus, to represent the views and approach of
Global Youth in a green, sustainable society. In Ali’s words, “youth
participation and empowerment have become essential to catalyse the rate of
sustainable development”. Ali also involved himself in the Group of 77(G-77)
official discussions, ensuring that the text produced did not oppose youth interests.
In collaboration with the UN Major Group for Children and Youth, he also tried
to convince countries’ delegates and blocs to endorse the appointment of a High
Commissioner for Future Generations, to guarantee that political elements are
in coherence with youth interests.
The main
objective of the National Consultation on Green Economy held in Islamabad had
been to compile recommendations for the Rio+20 process, and identify actions
that could be undertaken by the Government of Pakistan, by Pakistani civil
society, business, media, and academia, and by the international community in
this regard. The green economy, one of the core themes of the Rio Summit, will
not only play a crucial role in the future of the global community but is
important for Pakistan as well.
While
there was no consensus on the definition of the green economy at the
consultation, most participants viewed it as an instrument for facilitating the
transition towards sustainable development within Pakistan and globally,
including the urgent challenge of eradicating poverty, promoting social equity,
ensuring economic growth, and protecting land, water, forests, rangelands,
oceans and marine resources. Given the enormous energy crisis in the country,
one major recommendation was for the promotion of alternative energy:
“Widespread use of renewable energy could make a major contribution to poverty
eradication. Pakistan has immense resources of renewable energy, including
hydel, micro-hydro, solar, wind, and waste-to-energy. In order to benefit from
this potential, it was necessary to establish a level playing field based on a
clear and transparent policy framework, including for example the
feed-in-tariff approach, to give incentive to the power sector to contribute to
the national effort to provide safe, affordable, and adequate energy services
in all parts of the country…There was appreciation and support for the plans to
initiate a return to hydel power sources, as long as it is undertaken with due
regard to social and environmental impacts and safety considerations”.
The
national and provincial governments were also asked to support sustainable
development and the green economy through a strategic approach, including
developing a National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS). It was recommended
that its implementation should seek to revive and update the recommendations of
the 1992 National Conservation Strategy (NCS) through the effective
participation of all stakeholders, especially youth, women, small and landless
farmers, and indigenous people.
The NSDS,
which took months to prepare, was finally launched in Rio+20 by the Pakistani
delegation in a specially held side event. Now let’s hope that all these
preparations, recommendations and strategies are not ignored and that the
Pakistani delegation comes back from Rio with a renewed commitment to initiate
the greening of Pakistan’s economy.
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