4/5/2007
UN Sustainable Development Commission Hears Proposals To Promote Energy Efficiency

The 15th session of the CSD began on 30 April and will run until 11 May at UN Headquarters in New York and is attended by more than 90 ministers and 1,500 representatives of non-governmental organizations. This is the second, or policy year of the second implementation cycle during which the Commission will continue its focus on the following areas:  Energy for Sustainable Development; Industrial Development; Air pollution/ Atmosphere; and Climate Change.

Delegates to the meeting in New York this week proposed a wide range of measures aimed at helping to bring modern energy services to the poor, reduce energy waste and cut climate change-causing greenhouse gases.

“We need a major policy push to promote energy efficiency, to generate new energy technologies, and to promote advanced and cleaner technologies,” said José Antonio Ocampo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, in an opening address to the two-week session.

Long-term energy solutions, together with the interlinked issues of climate change, industrial development and air pollution, are at the core of the Commission’s agenda.
“This gathering can craft thoughtful, focused policy decisions to advance progress on several fronts: providing affordable, modern energy services to the poor, helping countries industrialize on the basis of cleaner production processes, and designing energy systems that contribute to confronting the global challenge of climate change,” Mr. Ocampo told participants.

Underlining the importance of the issues before this year’s session, Commission Chair Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy and Industry of Qatar, reminded delegates of their “historical responsibility to current and future generations to make progress here.”

This year’s CSD marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark Brundtland Commission report, Our Common Future,that put sustainable development on the map. To mark the anniversary, former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland is planning to address the high-level portion of the meeting on 9 May.

The Brundtland Commission gave ‘sustainable development’, an unwieldy term that has since gained general acceptance, its most widely used definition—“development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
“Every group has its own agenda, every country has its own interests,” Mr. Al-Attiyah said, adding, however, that he firmly believed that “there is strong political will among Member States to make real progress here during this session, and there exists a lot of common ground.”

Emphasizing the need for action, Mr. Al-Attiyah said that “with one third of the world without access to modern energy, our world is not a sustainable one; neither will our world be sustainable if the current patterns of consumption and production continue.”
Pakistan’s UN representative Farukh Amil, speaking on behalf of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China, called for the provision of new and additional financial resources for development, equitable international trade and financial systems, and the transfer of technology. He pointed out that official development assistance fell 5.1 percent in 2006 compared to 2005.

Energy Concerns High
Energy use is expected to grow by fifty per cent over the next 25 years, with two-thirds of that increase in developing countries. But there are a multitude of competing national and global energy issues that need to be addressed, including access to affordable energy, as well as reliable and clean energy supplies.

Per capita energy consumption in developing countries is still only between one-third and one-fifteenth of what it is in developed countries, but industrial development and economic growth are increasing the global demand for energy.

Energy consumption on a per capita basis in developing countries will continue to remain far lower than in developed countries.

Countries are expected to rely on fossil fuels to meet their energy needs through 2030 and beyond, and emissions of CO2, the dominant greenhouse gas, are expected to more than double by 2030. Developing countries, which have contributed least to the atmospheric build-up of carbon dioxide, are the ones at greatest risk and least equipped to deal with the effects of climate change.
There are areas where multilateral cooperation can make a difference. The IEA estimates that an investment of about $400 billion a year in energy infrastructure is needed to meet the needs of people in developing countries. New technologies can help provide energy services to more people in a more efficient manner.

Countries already identified many areas where progress can be made at last year’s CSD, which reviewed progress and identified obstacles with regard to access to clean energy services for the poor, industrial development in Africa, and the promotion of energy efficiency and renewable energy to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, countries agreed that international cooperation was essential to promote efforts to meet the challenges posed by climate change in small island developing states and in the least developed countries, such as threats posed by rising sea levels, and increased periods of floods and droughts.

The CSD is unique in that it brings together government delegates and representatives of major civil society groups, including, women, children and youth, indigenous people, non-governmental organizations, business, academia, local authorities, scientists, and workers and trade unions.