Delhi Sustainable Development Summit7 February, 2010 – Bhutan is formulating policies for the construction industry to employ green technology and practices, said Lyonchhoen Jigmi Y Thinley, while speaking to world leaders and other members at the Delhi sustainable development summit in India yesterday. Lyonchhoen, in his keynote address, also informed participants that a process is underway to augment Bhutanese school curricula promoting eco-literacy among students within zero-waste and green schools. The theme of the three-day summit, organised by the energy research institute (TERI), is ‘Beyond Copenhagen: New Pathways to Sustainable Development. India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated the summit. “Growth is the imperative and, for too long, we have pursued it without being clear about the purpose and end state of development,” said Lyonchhoen at the summit. He said that no limit is set on how much and for how long growth is to continue and whether such a continuous process is sustainable in a finite world. Sharing his personal experiences, Lyonchhoen said that the first time he gazed at the Himalayas was in 1989. “I was awed and inspired by the majesty and grandeur of this unbroken range of snow-clad mountains… It was easy to believe then that these were indeed the abode of the gods. Yesterday was the worst,” he said, referring to his flight to New Delhi on February 4. “There appeared to have been no snowfall in the Himalayas this year even at these heights and the Tibetan plateau beyond. Much of the range looked like a high wall of grey and jagged outcrop of rocks. The gods seem to have abandoned their home.” The prime minister also shared how Bhutanese, high in the vulnerable mountain kingdom, live, see and feel the disconcertingly rapid changes. “Climate change, I believe, isn’t only about what scientists report, it’s as much, if not more, about what we actually experience and from which we suffer,” he said. He said that there was a need to open our eyes to the high price of social dislocation and environmental devastation that has been paid to achieve GDP targets. “Let us accept that this powerfully dominant indicator is based on the seriously flawed belief that unlimited economic growth is necessary to promote human well being,” he said. Participants at the summit will also focus on the formulation and delineation of strategies to move the sustainable development agenda forward. The sustainable development summits have global support from over 60 countries, with participation from heads of government and ministers, and a host of other dignitaries comprising Nobel laureates, development practitioners, scientists, academics, and corporate leaders. According to media reports in India, a unique feature of this year’s summit would be the closed-door in-camera session to come up with clear plans and roadmap for the next Conference of the Parties to be held in Mexico City at the end of 2010. By Phuntsho Choden