First Indo-German Environment Forum meeting tomorrow

New Delhi, Nov 17 (UNI) The first Indo-German Environment Forum programme, which will focus on issues relating to climate, energy, water and waste policies, begins here tomorrow.

Germany has largely succeeded in decoupling economic growth from the consumption of natural resources and has also set itself ambitious targets by 2020, the country aims to achieve a 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990.

The 40 per cent reduction is ten percentage points more than the 30 per cent reduction aim of the EU. Such stringent targets call for an ambitious environmental policy and innovative technologies.

The main purpose of this forum is to share the lessons through extremely fruitful engagement and to widen the scope of commonly, agreed environmental agenda of both the countries.

''Both the countries share a belief that environmentally harmful processes should be stopped and over exploitation of non-renewable resources be controlled,'' an official release said here.

Besides bilateral and multi-lateral cooperation, other major factors such as private sector, the civil society and voluntary organisations will also be engaged.

Through this interactive forum, the Ministry of Environment and Forest will broaden the environmental stakeholdership.

India is already German industries' fourth biggest export market in Asia. Indo-German trade volume totaled EUR 12 billion in 2006-07.

There are currently around 1500 German companies operating in India out of which 700 are Indo-German joint ventures offering services and projects in Germany.

The forum will find out ways to support mutual beneficial partnerships and inter-dependencies. Germany has quite high benchmarks as an experienced and competent partner in the field of environment with state-of-the-art technological solutions.

These cover areas of environmental planning and legislation, clean technologies, environmentally friendly production methods and hazardous waste management and infrastructural development.

The focus of the Forum-'sanitation, water and waste management, energy efficiency, climate change and CDM' has been selected keeping in view their relevance to the Indian needs.

The two-day forum programme has been organised by the Ministry of Environment and Forest and the Federal Ministry for the Environment of Germany, Nature conservation and Nuclear Safety, Germany, Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA), Germany Federation of Indian chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), India in cooperation with Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, Germany, Federal Ministry for Economic cooperation and Development, Germany, Ministry of Power, India, Ministry of New Renewable Energy, India, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, Germany and Indo German Chamber of Commerce, India.

The Forum will serve a useful purpose through putting the bilateral business perspectives in place and thus build up this bilateral relationship and strengthen this strategic alliance in the times to come. The Indo-German Environment Forum is coinciding with the golden jubilee of the Indo-German bilateral cooperation.

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