Ramesh in high-level UN panel on global sustainability

Betwa Sharma

United Nations, Aug 10 (PTI) UN chief Ban Ki-moon has
roped in Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh for a
high-level panel on global sustainability aimed at finding
"practical answers" to lift people out of poverty while
tackling climate change.

The 21-member panel will be co-chaired by South African
President Jacob Zuma and his Finnish counterpart Tarja
Halonen.
Apart from Ramesh, Zuma and Halonen, the panel includes
Julia Carabias of Mexico, Cristina Narbona Ruiz of Spain and
Connie Hedegaard, the European Union's Commissioner for
Climate Change.
"I have asked the panel to think big. The time for narrow
agendas and narrow thinking is over," Ban said. "We need to
promote low carbon growth and strengthen our resilience to the
impacts of climate change."
Ban said the panel would also have to produce a "blue
print" for a more "sustainable" future, which would address
challenges of poverty, hunger, water, energy security and
sanitation.
The UN Secretary General noted that the panel would have
to "come up with practical answers that address the
institutional and financial arrangements that will be needed
to put such a new blueprint into practice."
The panel will report by the end of 2011 before the UN
Conference on Sustainable Development that will take place in
Rio de Janeiro in 2012 and the annual conferences of the UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Among the members of the panel are former prime
ministers of Norway, Republic of Korea, Japan, Mozambique and
Australia -- Gro Harlem Brundtland, Han Seung-soo, Yukio
Hatoyama, Luisa Dias Diogo and Kevin Rudd -- as well as
Alexander Bedritsky, an aide to Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev on climate change; and Susan Rice, the United States'
envoy to the UN. PTI BS
MYR