The Art Of Sustainable Development

Sustainable development simply put is the development that achieves the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of the future generation to meet their own needs.

An important aspect of sustainable development is intergenerational equity which is equity across generations. When we are talking about intergenerational equity an important topic that surfaces is Climate change.

Sustainable development cannot be achieved without environmental sustainability. A few days back a picture of a girl with a poster had gone viral on Facebook. The following quote was written on the poster directed towards the generation of our parents who are currently the riders of our economy, “you will die from age, I will die from lack of breathable air”.

This couldn’t be a clearer message. Today’s generation needs to take a step back and realize the need for environmental sustainability, the need to reduce our carbon footprint, the need to ensure that the future generations are left with clean air to breathe and survive.

India has been a part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals(2050) which covers action against climate change and yet this election season, the issue of climate change did not come up even once. Why? Because in a country like India, the people in power would rather focus on grabbing the throne than ensuring that West Bengal doesn’t submerge in the Bay of Bengal within this century.

Climate change and hence environmental sustainability should have been one of the primary focus of the parties submitting their manifestos and yet it didn’t even come up once.

The flagship report of UN found that global emissions are on the rise as national commitments to combat climate change come up short. But amidst all of this India has been thriving on its success of one of the largest solar farms in the world and is one of the largest generator of solar energy.

This is good but is it good enough?