NEW DELHI TO HOST CLIMATE TECHNOLOGY
BAZAAR FROM
India is hosting
a Climate Technology Bazaar and a series of Conferences relating
to clean technology in New Delhi from November 10-13, 2003. Disclosing
this at a news conference here today, the Minister for Environment
& Forests, Shri T.R. Baalu said that the Technology Bazaar,
being held in association with Confederation of Indian Industries
(CII), would showcase state of the art climate friendly technologies
from developed and developing countries in various fields.
Talking about the
rationale behind organizing the Bazaar, the Minister said that
the global community is addressing the challenge of climate change
through a multi-lateral and cooperative approach. The Government
of India demonstrated its commitment to address climate change
by acceding to the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in August, 2002. India successfully
hosted the 8th Conference of Parties (COP-8) in New
Delhi from October 23 to November 1, 2002. The Delhi Ministerial
Declaration, adopted at COP-8, provides a new direction to climate
change issues and firmly places climate change in the context
of sustainable development. The Conference also succeeded in the
operataionalisation of the Clean Development Mechanism and brought
technology transfer and adaptation into focus. The series of events
planned now will further the elements of the Delhi Ministerial
Declaration.
The Climate Technology
Bazaar would encourage manufacturing and industrial operations
to use such technologies that minimize green house gases emissions
and thereby reduce their environmental "footprint".
There would also be a Carbon Bazaar where companies and countries
interested in trade in emission reduction and green house gases
reduction projects would find a meeting point to working together.
Some of the major
areas which will be prominently covered in the Exhibition are:
- Energy efficiency (especially
in energy intensive industrial sectors such as steel, cement,
smelting etc.)
- Renewable energy (solar, wind,
biomass etc.)
- Climate-friendly manufacturing
processes and technologies
- Carbon sequestration technologies
- Technologies for Waste-to-Energy
Shri Baalu said that
several conferences are being held concurrently and organized
by institutions such as UNEP, UNFCCC, CII, TERI.
There will also be
an International Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Roundtable
on November 10, 2003. This Roundtable would allow senior representatives
of Business, Government and NGOs to interact with representatives
of the CDM Executive Board.
The United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is also organizing
a meeting of the Expert Group on Technology Transfer (EGTT) on
November 11 – 12, 2003. The Group consists of 20 members drawn
from developed and developing countries. This year’s Work Programme
of the Group covers technology needs assessment, technology information,
enabling environment, capacity building mechanisms and cross-cutting
issues.
A Workshop on Development
and Climate has been planned for November 11, 2003. Shri Baalu
said the conventional view has been to consider Climate change
as a barrier to development and development as a threat to climate
change. The development and climate paradigm views development
as the driving force for addressing climate changes, the key to
overcoming its vulnerability and enhancing capabilities for adaptation
to its adverse impacts, he said.
Concurrently, the
United Nations Environment Programme is organizing a workshop
on November 10-11, 2003 to identify research needs and produce
a thoughtful plan for further research collaboration and applications
relating to adaptation. The expected output of this workshop includes
methodology for identification of vulnerable hot spots, designing
a procedure to evaluate impact on hot spots highly vulnerable
to adverse impacts of climate change, adaptation designs and strategies
to tackle multiple stresses, capacity building for tackling climate
adaptation and developing a pathway for international negotiations
on adaptation policies.
Back to back with
the UNEP workshop, the UNFCCC is organizing a workshop on Adaptation
on November 12-13, 2003. The objective of this workshop is to
promote an exchange of information on existing indigenous technologies
and local coping strategies currently in use for climate-change
related impacts and to brainstorm on how current methodological
approaches to adaptation can be expanded to effectively accommodate
such community-level coping strategies to address extreme events
like drought, floods and tropical storms. Presenters and resource
persons will include experts with field experience in anticipatory
and reactive coping strategies for drought, floods and tropical
storms.
The Technology Bazaar
and all the above conferences on Adaptation, Technology Transfer
and CDM are inter-related. Shri Baalu said, this is bound to generate
a lot of interest amongst stakeholders both in the developed and
developing countries and will provide a common platform for furtherance
of the multilateral process as envisioned under the convention
and its Protocol with emphasis on developing country concerns
like technology transfer, vulnerability and adaptation. The Exhibition
and the Conferences would also offer an excellent networking opportunity
with the delegates from various countries, providing a fillip
to business development and expansion plans.
