Sri Lanka is focusing on green sustainable development as envisaged in the Maithri Palanayak Election Manifesto, said Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in Parliament yesterday.
He said the government had already approved a Sustainable Development Council Bill and the same has been referred to Provincial Councils for their observations. He added that following their observations, the government could debate on it and pass the bill in Parliament, adding that following the bill being passed, the Sustainable Development Minister could come up with new plans for the future.
He made these observations moving the Ratification of the Paris Agreement on the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted in New York on May 09, 1992.
He said that he was happy that Parliamentarians take a keen interest on the matter and he should also explain as to why a change in Parliamentary business is needed to bring this forward.
“Global Climate Change has captured our attention during the last few decades. The United Nations adopted the framework at the Convention on Climate Change in 1992. But the problem was that the countries could not agree to the steps to be taken. We can see how long it had taken for global countries to come into an agreement. The problem was that, developed countries did not need to control the emission as they thought their own development process would be affected, Premier Wickremesinghe said. “We are well aware that during the last two centuries, the the industrial revolution, the rapid development of the world economies, the World War 11, use of atomic weapons, the test on nuclear weapons, etc. have made a significant impact on the Global Climate Change. Therefore,concerning the Climate Change, the expected 1.5 to 2 Celsius degree increase is getting exceeded. As I told you earlier, the waters of the Mahaweli river could get affected, while tea cultivation too could be affected. Due to this reason, there had been many meetings held, while last was in Copenhagen which also ended without reaching any agreement despite the efforts made as many countries were looking at their own interest.”
He said that it was possible for a country to develop fast, while controlling its emissions. “We are happy that Europe and Japan took the lead on these matters. However, the Paris Climate Talks last year reached a decision. I won’t say that I was 100 percent satisfied with it, but it was a great leap forward. Now the process of ratification has commenced. For ratification requires fifty five percent of the countries with 55 percent of the global emission to ratify the agreement for it to come into force. Although many countries have agreed to it, there are still issues in some of the western countries and also in some of the Asian development economies. While they agree to control emissions, these are major issues coming up when they face the forthcoming elections in western countries this year and next year,” Premier Wickremesinghe said.
He said in this background, it gave us great encouragement that the President of the United States of America and the President of China agreed to ratify the agreement prior to the G 20 Meeting. “Following it, many countries and parliaments have decided to go ahead to ratify the agreement. Sri Lanka is concerned that President Maithripala Sirisena’s manifesto agreed to take all necessary measures to protect the environment. The President has taken over the Environmental Ministry and had taken many measures to protect the environment. So, we have a great responsibility to ratify this agreement. Sri Lanka has the ambition for rapid development, however it should be a green development.
The government has already approved a Sustainable Development Council Bill. It has been sent to the Provincial Councils. I have asked the Provincial Council Minister to expedite the process so that we could debate it and pass it here. Later, we could take other necessary measures. In this background, we have to ratify it quickly, by ensuring that at least by the time the UN General Assembly meets, there would be ample ratifications at the November meeting this year by the time this agreement would come into force. We had discussed this matter with President Maithripala Sirisena. We felt that Parliament should ratify this agreement before President Maithripala Sirisena’s visit to New York for the General Assembly in November. This is the last week that we could sit before the President’s visit to New York”, Premier Wickremesinghe said. “So we moved this agreement.”
Source :10/09/2016 Daily News http://epaper.dailynews.lk/art.asp?id=2016/09/10/pg10_0&pt=p&h=
