|
Prime Minister
George Papandreou arrived in New Delhi, India, on Thursday 4
February 2010 to attend and address the 2010 Delhi Sustainable
Development Summit (DSDS) , the first major
global meeting after the
Copenhagen
climate summit in December 2009. The theme of the three-day
meet, being organized by The
Energy Research Institute (TERI), was 'Beyond Copenhagen: new
pathways to sustainable development'. (Read
Papandreou’s speech)
On the sidelines of
the DSDS, George Papandreou had a series of bilateral meetings with
world leaders who gathered in New Delhi to discuss climate change
and green development, which was the central theme of the Summit,
as well as the global financial crisis.
On this occasion,
Greek Prime Minister met Thursday with Indian Prime Minister Dr.
Manmohan Singh and had talks covering a wide range of sectors
pertaining to cooperation in the fields of construction,
infrastructure, telecoms, e-governance, tourism, green technology,
enhancing bilateral trade, and a direct air link between the two
countries. He also invited him to visit Greece
After the 40
minutes discussion of the two Premiers, Mr. Papandreou said, in an
interview to the Indian newspaper The Economic Times, that he shared
Mr Singh’s outlook on the economic situation and said he was taking
steps to contain the crisis in his country. "He (Mr Singh) was
talking about creating a system which will prepare our planet to
spot these crisis' before they break out and that's why we are
saying we have similar views concerning what G-20 should do. So we
are counting on India," he said.
The following day
Mr. Papandreou met
with the president of India’s Congress
Party, Sonia Gandhi and her son and rising politician, Rahul
Gandhi. He also had the opportunity – during his talks with the
Indian government – to further boost diplomatic relations between
the two countries and to seek new trade and economic partners.
This was the third official visit of Mr. Papandreou
in India. He had visited this country previously as Minister of
Foreigner Affairs in November 2001 and as the
Chairman of the Socialist International in January 2007 in order to
participate in the
International Conference on Mahatma Gandhi's vision and values
in the 21st Century organized by the ruling National
Congress Party on the occasion of the completion of 100 years since
its foundation.
|
|
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. I would like to thank
the Energy and Resource Institute, Dr. Rajenda Pachauri and of
course the IPCC for the work that you have been doing.
Obviously in Copenhagen we had a chance to create a binding global
agreement. It was within our reach, but we did not deliver the
results we were hoping for. The Copenhagen Accord does not set
global long-term or mid-term reduction targets that are legally
binding, something which both the European Union and, of course,
Greece which I represent, have been supporting.
Although the Accord is an acknowledgement by the international
community that greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced
radically, it lacks a credible compliance verification system to
ensure that these commitments are implemented. So urgency is
lacking, and it could cost us our Earth.
I would, however, like to say a few words about what one might call
the elephants in the room, concerning the challenges we have
politically, because this is a political project and it is
challenging our democratic institutions.
I would say the first challenge is that the decisions we politicians
make, decisions taken today will have an impact on tomorrow’s world.
Although we know that our day-to-day politics and election cycles
are foremost in our minds, we must create a very different mindset
to look at the future.
This is a new challenge, a challenge to be able to go beyond the
day-to-day crises of unemployment, financial crisis or poverty and
education issues - to see that we can in fact establish policies
which will link the greening of our economies with day-to-day issues
of our citizens.
So one first challenge is how do we translate the green economy,
which I very much believe in, into the politics and practices of our
daily lives, of our citizens in a way that will be showing them that
we can create jobs, we can deal with challenges and create
institutions for some of the major crises we may be facing, whether
it’s migration or desertification or other problems.
This challenge may be even more difficult in emerging and developing
countries, where there are more pressing, not only financial, but
also social and societal problems.
A second problem, or a second challenge, I would say, is that our
citizens, and particularly our youth, are becoming much more
conscious of this problem, this issue, the spectre of climate
change. That is a sign of hope. I might even say that it’s perhaps
the first time we are creating a global consciousness, and the youth
are doing this, in fact, using very much the Internet and the Media.
This is strength, but it also reveals a deep weakness and it creates
a sense of powerlessness and frustration, because this consciousness
does not translate into policy decisions at the global level. It
shows that we are still profoundly national in our governance, our
governments and institutions. Our democratic institutions are also
profoundly national.
This is the first time in history we are challenged to govern this
planet together, collectively, in unison, or otherwise perish.
And Copenhagen revealed the deep weaknesses in global governance,
which could lead to a world divided and disabled.
The third challenge pertains to historical responsibilities, but
also our future capabilities. The western developed world quite
rightly is being asked to carry the burden of financing this major
shift to the global green economy, to redistribute both wealth and
know-how, to support developing countries and their new obligations
to also become green economies and shepherding our common wealth.
Yet today, after this financial crisis, economic power is shifting.
The developed countries are carrying higher and more difficult
deficits, while emerging economies are much stronger, both in
reserves and in surpluses.
This in turn begs another question, that of creating the necessary
new financial institutions, which are representative, more
equitable, and which can promote, mobilise and invest capital around
the world in a planetary project for greening our economies.
It also begs the question of how we can combine development aid with
the greening of our economies. I think this is why Copenhagen was,
again, a failure because, as the President of Slovenia said, we need
clear messages, even to the markets, to the investors, if we want to
create the incentives to mobilise capital for the greening of our
economy.
And in this perspective, I also am chairing the Socialist
International, 170 member parties, and we have created – and Ricardo
Lagos is here – a commission on a sustainable world society,
presided by him and also by the former Prime Minister of Sweden,
Göran Persson. You can find the Commission’s report, which is called
‘From a High-Carbon Economy to a Low-Carbon Society’, on the Web. It
has been unanimously approved by these 170 parties, and we have some
very, I think, important suggestions, which show both the
responsibility of the developed world but also the responsibilities
of the developing and emerging economies, in creating solidarity and
trust, but also proposals which I think can deal with some of these
divisions that we have, such as cancelling foreign debt of poorer
states or transforming their debt into equal funds, as one option,
or a global carbon tax, another option, which would allow us, those
who commit to this, to receive, and particularly developing
countries, to receive a percentage of tax revenues from developed
countries, from this carbon tax, to help fund green technology,
forest preservation, reforestation, adaptation to climate change,
but other tools such as green bonds or transaction, the so-called
Tobin Taxes, must also be discussed, and this will be an issue which
we’ll be bringing up even in the European Union, I believe, next
week, when we meet at the summit to talk about both the economy and
Copenhagen.
The fourth challenge, which has to do with our democratic
institutions, is that technology, in the end, is not neutral. We
know that by now. What we will choose, even in our renewable
energies, will have an impact on our institutions, our democratic
institutions.
I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday from India, Ajay
Mehta, who reminded me of the great tradition of India of
volunteerism, in local communities, in NGOs.
Are we going to create technologies which will decentralise power
and mobilise our societies, or will we have passive citizens, more
authoritarian structures?
And because I believe in participative democracy, I believe that to
tackle the problem of climate change we need to mobilise our
citizens. They need to be part of this project. Otherwise, the
complexity is so vast that we politicians alone cannot do this.
So I would finally add a suggestion, that because of this huge task
we need to create awareness, awareness both for the politicians, and
understanding and education of the politicians, but also the
education of our publics, our citizens, of the types of problems we
are facing.
In doing so, I would suggest that the scientific community, such as
the IPCC and others, the political community, the NGOs, the business
community, work together in creating I would say a global
curriculum, primarily for our schools but also for our universities,
for the greening of our education. Greening of our education so that
we can become worthy stewards of our planet, build collective skills
and skills for collective action, create a commonwealth of knowledge
accessible to all, empower our societies to become active
participants in facing the challenges, but also a conscious
constituency, a political constituency, which will be demanding and
supporting policies from our institutions.
In this context, Greece sees the challenge of the greening of the
economy as an opportunity. We also see it as an opportunity to bring
our country out of recession and create long-term prospects for
growth. We have been taking initiatives in the Mediterranean and in
the Balkans of South-eastern Europe, working of course within the
institutions of Europe, the European Union, supporting the 2020
strategy that we have.
So let us work together. Let us work together towards Mexico but
also post-Mexico, in this landmark battle against climate change,
but also making it an opportunity for greening our economies and
making our globalised society a humane, sustainable and democratic
society.
Thank you very much for your attention."
|
