Environmentalists seek green manifestos

Political parties told to incorporate 17 sustainable development goals

The Council for Green Revolution and Citizens Against Pollution presented a green manifesto to be adopted by various political parties incorporating 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs).

At a meeting held at Press Club Hyderabad senior environmentalists and policy experts including Prof. K. Purushotham Reddy; Dr. Indrasena Reddy; K. Leela Laxma Reddy, Kesav, Raj Reddy, Donti Narsimha Reddy, C. Umamaheswar Reddy, Ch. Shiva Prasad and R. Dileep Reddy presented a report on various aspects to be dealt with Green Manifesto.

Commitment sought

Some of the issues on which they sought clear commitments from the political parties included no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well being, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy and sustainable cities and communities among others.

Key dimensions

They said with elections in Telangana, it is time political parties took cognizance of sustainable development goals and reflected the same in their manifestos.

The manifesto presented by them addressed three key dimensions of ecological sustainability, diversity and equity and they argued for an integrated resource planning approach, which interlinks economic growth (livelihoods, green skills, etc), equity (access, subsidies, quality of service) and environmental sustainability (internalising impacts, promoting climate friendly energy sources, food systems).

Natural resource usage, including energy, human, water, land and ecological, should be through cyclical systems, they said. Technology, finance, institutions, skills and capacities have to be tuned and modified to suit these cyclical systems, the environmental scientists argued.