India proposes dovetailing climate action with sustainable development at first meeting of G20 Sherpas
India has proposed dovetailing climate action with sustainable development at the first meeting of the G20 Sherpas, making a clear bid to bring issues facing the emerging economies and the global south in sharp focus on the world stage. The discussions focussed on technological transformation in the digital economy, health and education, green development and India's Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) initiative.
India's G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant made a strong pitch for working together through hope, harmony and healing to deal with the global challenges, with a focus on developing countries and the global south whose voice is often unheard. He flagged rising global debt, inflation and slowdown in growth, sharp differences over the Ukraine conflict as key challenges facing the world.
He said ‘we will be, but that is not feasible nor possible without all of you. Therefore, we would like the support, positive and forward-looking support from all of you to make the G20 a very vibrant, very dynamic and a very positive group to drive global growth and global sustainability and digital transformation’. He added that India's G20 Presidency will seek to advocate the priorities of the developing countries and the global south in addition to that of the partners of the grouping.
Highlighting India's initiatives on digital transformation, Kant said ‘In digital economy, we are focussing on digital public infrastructure, quite a bit on our experience of creating digital identities and bank accounts for everyone. This has enabled us to lift vast section of the population above the poverty line through direct benefit transfer and fast payments.’
