Wednesday, July 19, 2023
Union Minister for Culture and Tourism, G Kishan Reddy stated India’s aims for G20 are in accordance with the concept of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’, which means, ‘One Earth-One Family-One Future’. Addressing a High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) meeting on the theme ‘Economic, Social, and Environmental Sustainability in Tourism’ under the auspices of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in New York late Friday night, he outlined India’s G-20 priorities, which included ‘Accelerated inclusive and resilient growth, Accelerating progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); Technological transformation and digital public infrastructure’.
Exhorting on how tourism may help accelerate progress towards the SDGs envisioned in the Goa Roadmap at the UNWTO, he stated that India’s G20 Presidency’s objective is to encourage the transformation of tourism towards a more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive future for everyone.
As part of the ‘GOA Roadmap for Tourism’, the SDGs are emphasised in terms of promoting “Decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation, and infrastructure, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, and partnerships for the goals.”
The Union Minister also discussed “Travel for LiFE in line with the Mission Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) movement.”
Kishan Reddy emphasised the G-20 Tourism Working Group Priorities of “Green Tourism, Digitilisation, Skills, MSME, and Destination Management” in terms of SDG development. Aside from that, the country’s National Tourism Policy recognises sustainability as a principle that applies across the tourism value chain of tourist activities, operations, projects, and so on.
To that end, India’s National Strategy for Sustainable Tourism (NSST) is built on seven pillars: environmental, economic and promotion of socio-cultural sustainability, and protection of biodiversity, certification of sustainable tourism, sensitization of responsible travel through Travel for LiFE, capacity building through skill development, global tourism plastics initiative and responsible traveller campaign through YUVA Tourism Clubs.
Kishan Reddy noted that India is the world’s third-largest producer of renewable energy, and recalled several initiatives the country has taken in line with its expressed intention at COP 26 and its efforts to address the challenge of climate change by presenting to the world five nectar elements (Panchamrit) of its climate action, targeting net zero emissions by 2070.
On the subject of climate change and sustainability, he stated that India’s historical cumulative emissions and per capita emissions are quite low. Despite housing more over 17% of the world’s population, it emitted just around 4% of worldwide total greenhouse gas emissions between 1850 and 2019.
Furthermore, non-fossil fuel sources such as hydro, wind, and solar account for 40% of India’s installed energy capacity. Indian Railways alone will decrease emissions by 60 million tonnes per year as part of the Net Zero Emissions objective by 2030. The enormous UJALA LED bulb initiative in India is decreasing emissions by 40 million tonnes per year.
Furthermore, in 2023, the nation announced the National Hydrogen Mission, with the goal of becoming the world’s largest hydrogen centre.
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