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Shillong, July 6: A side event of the G20 will take place in Meghalaya from Thursday to ideate on ecological and environmental issues and the recommendations would be presented before the G20.
The two-day Think20 (T-20) conference titled "Nature Solves: A New Framework for Our Sustainable Future" is being organized by the Meghalaya Basin Management Agency, in collaboration with the Observer Research Foundation.
Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, incidentally would give the keynote addresses together with others such as Eenam Gambhir, Joint Secretary (G20) Ministry of External Affairs, United Nations Resident Coordinator in India, and Federico Salas Lotfe, Ambassador of Mexico to India and others.
Think20 (T20) is an official engagement group of the G20. It serves as an “idea bank” for the G20 by bringing together think tanks and high-level experts to discuss policy issues relevant to the G20.
T20 recommendations are then presented to G20 working groups, ministerial meetings, and leaders’ summits to help the G20 deliver concrete policy measures.
During the two-day conference national and international participants would try to figure out the best solution for ecological and environmental mitigation and frame policy for the participating G20 nations.
The participants would include policymakers, academicians, bureaucrats, and experts from multilateral agencies representing 14 G20 countries, and also the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, UNDP and other organizations.
Some of the issues to be discussed would be “green growth, women-led development, climate finance, nature-based solutions for climate action,” so that economic-ecological-environmental developments could go hand in hand.
Altogether 60 speakers from various countries are expected to present their views which would then help germinate the “Meghalaya Manifesto" - a policy framework to restore biodiversity and combat climate change.
Ironically, the conference is being held when the NPP-led Meghalaya government has been reproached time and again by the Meghalaya High Court for failing to stop the environmentally hazardous illegal coal mining and coke oven plants in the state.
