R K Pachauri, Ph.D
Director-General, TERI
India is at a stage when it must make some critical choices. The easiest choice would be to follow the example of the developed world and to proceed on a path of increasing consumerism without due regard to impacts on the environment and the good health and conservation of the country’s natural resources. This would prove disastrous in the long run and would lead to major inequities in income and wealth distribution. It would also lead to degradation of the country’s ecosystem and natural resources with harmful consequences for the economy and for Indian society as a whole. Such a path would also add to the problem of climate change that the world has now to deal with on an urgent and serious basis.
The other choice, which is undoubtedly superior and would have major consequences for the world and all of humanity, is to ensure that our laws, regulatory institutions and practices as well as human behaviour uphold the primacy of nature as an important determinant of human welfare. The world is in urgent need for a different model of development that is truly sustainable. It is for a country like India to establish a path that creates such a model. We have to use our intrinsic belief, traditions and values to move towards such a model. Then only would the world see the merit of such action and emulate us for the benefit of all mankind and other living species on this planet."
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