In the Youth Forum, I have taken the responsibility of editing the Daily News Brief, which you can also see on the same page above.

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Second Week Discussion Summary
The theme of the week was “Looking at green economy for low carbon future in the context of poverty alleviation and sustainable development”. More than 150 youth have raised their issues, concerns in the week for the theme.
The new concept, green economy, is still is in development/incubation stage so its comprehensive analysis is necessary before switching towards. The term “Green Economy” incorporates many sectors and issues in the Earth so it is like a Green Umbrella giving shelter to the Earth.
Even after 20 years of the Rio Summit, the situation of our planet has not improved. Too large footprint of richer people has become a serious concern. We should have equal distributions of resources and opportunities, adoption of sustainable lifestyles to make sure that we hand over the Earth to the next generation in the condition at least what our parents did to us.
As we all know, before playing a musical instrument, fine tuning is necessary. If we assume the green economy is an instrument then poverty alleviation, improved livelihoods, equal share of resources are keys of the strings. Proper tuning is required to play the soft and lasting of the sustainable development music, that is the main purpose. Some indicators of green economy are use of renewable energy, transformation of waste to energy, green cities with sustainable transport, green jobs, efficient water supply system, organic farming and eco-tourism etc.
Developing a “green low carbon society” is a great goal but what can be the realistic rate of developing it to a level that enables up to arrest if not reduce global, national or local CO2 and other key greenhouse gas emissions? It would be like trying to fill a bucket of water when a hole at the bottom allows more water to leak out than is put in.
“The resources are enough for everybody’s need but not for greed”, as of Mahatma Gandhi, so the resources in the Earth should be used wisely ensuring that the present use of them will not affect their use in future.
Energy is the major driver for the green economy so the concept of bio-fuels, solar powers, wind mills, decentralized micro-hydro projects are potential in South Asia as many parts are occupied by villages in remote areas of the region. But, there is a large gap of research for their proper harnessing for benefiting the community, so the time has come to go for the action oriented researches. Agriculture, forestry and tourism are the backbones of the economy in South Asia so those three sectors should be “Green” at first for ensuring the green economy is tuning well. On the other hand, due to unstable economy and research gap, switching to green economy is a bigger challenge for South Asia. Moreover, the situation of money flow by the donors is not in favor of achieving development for a long run, people are going to be dependent to others. The donor oriented programs are like heavy discharge in river immediate after rainfall and completely dry if no rain. Therefore, donor oriented programs should be shifted to the self sustained one, so there should be “an exit strategy” to reduce the foreign fund in development sectors. On the other hand, if we are compelled to accept development donation, so we should have planning on which sectors are needier. Sustainable development should come from the grassroot level and if the communities are motivated properly and directed and structured with some guidance and support, then sustainability is no longer a question. Unfortunately, being the citizens of developing countries, we are enjoying remittance economy by exporting youth to other countries, for short term, it may seem good but in the long run whom shall the country rely on? A big question arises.
Upland people are conserving the environment and the resources and the lowland people are getting benefited so there should be strong mechanisms for Payment of Ecosystem Services (PES) among those upland-lowland communities.
Few examples that can be replicated in this region towards the green economy are production of ethanol which substitutes the use of fossil fuels as the ethanol can easily be produced from the waste straw of rice and wheat which are abundant in this region. Also, one more example is “Car Pooling” system, which is like travelling all the staffs of a company in a single vehicle, in which one pays for fuel, another for hiring the car and so on, which eventually reduces the number of vehicles. Also, the region consists of many barren areas and fast growing species of plants can be planted in those barren lands to increase livestock productivity, which enhances the livelihood of the farmers and also contributes for the slope stabilization in the regions reducing soil erosion in the fragile ecosystem. Farming of medicinal plants by mountain community has a great potential for a source of economic development in the rural communities. In case of tourism which is a major industry in this region, there should be Tourism Impact Assessment (TIA), a step forward in this context, for sustainable tourism development which should also consider the traditional norms, knowledge and practices. We have lots of resources to be explored. There should be licensing mechanism for harvesting the medicinal herbs in our localities and should make sure that we are not selling the indigenous knowledge to the tourists randomly. Majority of tourism places are facing problems related to pollution and poor sanitation. Therefore, it is better shifting towards village level tourism where the waste can easily be managed and the livelihoods of the local people be enhanced. Women’s role in mountain tourism should be acknowledged and they should be empowered for promoting ecotourism business as they are pivotal joint of society. Eco-tourism should also be looked through trans-boundary tourism mechanisms as there is no boundary for natural beauties.
Green economy gives rise to green jobs. The steps for transition towards green jobs are that the workers need to be trained for efficient use of resources by providing on-the-job or off-the –job trainings, strong relationship among renewable energy industries, training providers and universities to support the sharing of knowledge. Strengthening of private sectors, public private partnership (PPP), and linkage of client, company and financing institution are needed to achieve the long term sustainability in development sectors. The economy of developing countries is growing however their capacity to develop and use of new and advanced cleaner technology is very limited. Therefore, there should be technology transfer mechanism from developed nations to the developing nations which is also a way for re-uniting between developed and developing countries but at first the developing nations should try to explore those technology and their alternatives within themselves. For example, they have lots of technologies and resources for the construction of green roads by using bioengineering techniques but the big question is how efficiently they are using the technologies. We should follow the green technologies with our elders otherwise there is high chance of loss of indigenous knowledge as only few people are practicing them. On the other hand, numbers of technology available are currently confined to laboratories so that research outputs do not have much impact on society directly and brained scientists have been migrating towards developed countries for better opportunities.
Hence, it is high time to start Green Habit from own-self at first. Let’s celebrate our birthdays not cutting cake instead planting a tree. Initiations should be paid from the government sectors and there should be good governance in service delivery and resource distribution mechanism of the state. Environment should be integrated in all economic activities like agriculture, industries, businesses, service sectors that guarantee sustainable development besides political willingness.
“Youth” are seed, as seed does not turn itself into plant unless it is sowed in soil, provided with water and other required minerals. Youth require skills so as to function, but skill is not alien thing, it have to be developed. The voice of youth should be raised and heard for every decision making process as those decisions made today will eventually affect to the youth. Also, the old schools of thought are not working well, youth have power to change, energy and skill and have clear objectives for their own future so there should be representation of youth for the Rio+20 meeting next year.
Many innovative minds can have a wider impact than a single one. So it is high time for the youth not only to sit together and built a pyramid of novel ideas to save the planet earth for ourselves and the future generation, but also move to the ground and be the real players so as to substantiate the idea ‘green economy’ in sustainable development. Let’s join our hands to protect our mother earth and pool our knowledge and skills to bring a Green change not climate change.