The larger economic choice for South Asia is therefore broader than whether to participate in carbon trading. The region can remain primarily a supplier of relatively inexpensive mitigation outcomes, or it can also develop the technology, professional capacity, financial products and verification systems that determine what those outcomes are worth.
On top of that is our own unsustainable living that is creating large-scale havoc on the planet. They include construction of large dams, roads, and tunnels in the fragile Himalayan region. These activities together with the melting of glaciers due to global warming are bound to create worse natural disasters in the coming years.
The regional opportunity is particularly significant in electricity. Nepal and Bhutan can potentially export hydropower; India can provide the scale of demand and investment required to create a regional electricity market; Bangladesh can become an important electricity consumer; and Sri Lanka and Pakistan can expand solar and wind. Greater cross-border electricity trade could allow countries to exploit complementary renewable resources and reduce the need for expensive domestic backup capacity.
A genuinely regional approach could eventually include - besides Nepal, China and India - Bhutan and, where relevant, downstream institutions in Bangladesh. Organisations with established Himalayan expertise, particularly the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu, could offer scientific and institutional support.
From South Asia, the two newly elected leaders of troubled countries, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Sri Lanka's President Ranil Wickremesinghe, are among the scheduled participants along with Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, Sher Bahadur Deuba of Nepal and Lotay Tshering of Bhutan. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not attending the meeting this year and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar is scheduled to speak for India on Saturday.
US President Joe Biden will present at the high-level General Assembly meeting next week ideas for moving forward the long-delayed UN Security Council reform process that includes expanding it, according to US Permanent Representative Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
“What is happening in Pakistan demonstrates the sheer inadequacy of the global response to the climate crisis, and the betrayal and injustice at the heart of it”, he said.
The reform process known formally as the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) has been virtually blocked over decades from proceeding by a determined minority that has stopped it from adopting a negotiating text
“From Pakistan, I am issuing a global appeal: stop the madness; end the war with nature; invest in renewable energy now”
A small group of countries, including Pakistan and Italy, who call themselves United for Consensus (UfC), have been blocking the adoption of a formal negotiating text or procedures for the negotiations and the labelling of some discussions as “unformals” is an apparent sop to them
Callamard said the report “lays bare the scale and severity of the human rights violations taking place in Xinjiang – which Amnesty International previously concluded amounted to crimes against humanity. There can be little doubt why the Chinese government fought so hard to pressure the UN to conceal it”
Pakistan's Finance Minister Miftah Ismail was reported as saying that Islamabad would consider importing vegetables from India given the devastation to Pakistan's agriculture
“We join others in calling for the protection of the rights of women and girls, and to ensure that the long-fought gains of the last two decades are not reversed”, the Indian representative said.
Lt Gen. Mohan Subramanian of India has taken over the command of the UN’s peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, the largest of its 13 global operations
"Generations could be affected if we fail in our obligation to protect the Rohingya and all the people of Myanmar, their fundamental rights and dignity,” Special Envoy Heyzer said
Although this was the first time India had not abstained on a matter linked to Ukraine and voted with the West, a diplomatic source played down its significance
In points aimed at Islamabad and Beijing, Kamboj said, “Common security is also only feasible when all countries stand together against common threats such as terrorism and do not engage in double standards while preaching otherwise”. India has accused Pakistan of sheltering terrorists and backing terrorist organisations, a charge also repeated by Kabul
More than two decades of efforts to reform the Council which is stuck in the post-World War II structure have failed because of obstruction from a small number of countries led by Italy and including Pakistan
The move is controversial with some Kashmiri politicians strongly opposing it.
