Seychelles called upon the international community to help the small island states to save their ecosystems from the dreadful impact of climate change.

Addressing the 11th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit on Thursday the Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh said that while India, China and other developing countries have all responded with significant voluntary goals and specific plans on emission intensity reduction, the industrialized nations have yet to declare their emission reduction targets for 2020 for containing global temperature rise within 2 degree C or less.

He called upon the developed world to effect changes in their lifestyles “to move away from production and consumption patterns which are carbon-intensive and energy-intensive.”

“In developing countries, poverty eradication will have to be linked to availability of clean, renewable and affordable energy. I believe that charting these new pathways is not beyond our collective imagination. Life as we know it on our beautiful plant is at stake,” he said.

Dr Singh said that the 12th Five-Year Plan, covering the period 2012-17, will focus on specific initiatives needed to put our development on a path consistent with low carbon growth. Energy efficiency and exploitation of renewable energy sources will receive a special emphasis.

He called for enforcement of regulatory standards for controlling pollution but not with the view of bringing back Licence Permit Raj which had been abandoned in the wake of economic reforms in early nineties. To deal with the residual pollution that may be caused despite regulatory efforts, the principle of Polluter Pays must be applied. This would discourage polluters and provide for financing corrective steps needed. He suggested sustainable management of common pool resources with community participation as in the case of Forest Rights Act.

TERI along with the Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research organised the 11th DSDS with the theme - Tapping Local Initiatives and Tackling Global Inertia.

The Afghan President Hamid Karzai, President of the Dominican Republic Leonel Fernandez Reyna and President of Seychelles James Alix Michel are participating in the event. Nobel Laureates Prof Joseph Stiglitz (Professor, Columbia University, USA), Dr Yuan-Tseh Lee (President, Academia Sinica, Taiwan) and Prof Sir James A Mirrlees (Professor of Political Economy, University of Cambridge) will also address the audience.

The Seychelles President, James Alix Michel urged the international community to help the small islands to safeguard what they have achieved. “The major emitters need to take concrete and decisive action. We need binding commitments and concrete action. Without them our ecosystems will continue to suffocate and our people will continue to struggle for their livelihood”, he said.

President Michel reiterated the plea of Seychelles that gets affected by bigger countries which refuse to realize the cut off between the resources that it depends on and their consumption. He cited the example of the tuna that they buy without feeling the pain of the fisherman who is struggling to feed his family, at the same time trying to avoid pirates and increase his efforts due to shifting fish populations as a result of warming oceans. To get rid of this inertia, the President said, the global community must listen to the plea of small island states.

He said that in Copenhagen, the world stood together expecting a deal on climate change but alas the hope that it generated then lost momentum.

“We regained hope in the aftermath of Cancun but it needs to be further grounded in an approach that will provide quick and tangible results”, has said President Michel to world leaders, NGOs, academia and other stakeholders at the summit.

Comparatively the Indian Prime Minister, Dr Singh said that though Copenhagen did not resolve all problems, it did produce some modest results.

Seychelles President cited a few demands that small island states have put forth for consideration such as atmospheric CO2 to be capped and the earth’s increasing surface temperature to be kept within 1.5 degrees Celsius.

He has also cited the achievements of his country in conservation of the environment and pointed out that in August last year Seychelles increased its protected land to 47%.

President Michel told the summit that for small islands, an investment in environmental protection is also an investment in their economic and social well-being for the long-term.

He called for democratizing the Bretton Woods institutions to make them more relevant, more responsive to contemporary realities. The global governance has to be modified to reflect justice, fairness and realism, he said.

President Michel alleged : “The most recent UN Human Development Report completely ignored 10 Small Island Developing States and left them, unranked”.

President Michel started the ball rolling with discussions with the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. They have basically exchanged conversations on bilateral cooperation and regional security issues.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai also discussed issues of bilateral cooperation with Dr Singh. The Dominican President Leonel Fernandez Reyna had earlier discussed bilateral issues with the Indian Prime Minister.

Addressing the 11th edition of DSDS, Indian minister for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh said that not much can be expected from the UN climate change talks in Durban scheduled later this year. 'One should be realistic and should not hope for what will not be able to accomplish at Durban, else we begin for another disappointment,” he said.

According to him the climate change talks at Cancun last year were disappointing from the environmental point of view but were a political advancement.

He listed four issues where no final decision would take place at Durban like any agreement on second commitment period for Kyoto Protocol, legally binding agreement on emission cuts, controversy over containing global temperature rise within 2 degree C and 1.5 degree C.

He however said that that there was no need for disappointment as Cancun has already provided a work plan and a template of actionable points for implementation.