Sustainable development not at cost of economic growth: Jairam Ramesh

NEW DELHI: All countries have to take on their fair share of responsibility to ensure sustainable development but not at the cost of economic growth, rural development minister Jairam Ramesh told Finnish parliamentarians.

The challenge was to find economic drivers that would address aspirations of higher standard of living, while promoting sustainability.

Jairam Ramesh, who served on the UN Secretary General's panel on global sustainability, was the keynote speaker at a special session of the plenary of Eduskunta, Finnish parliament, on sustainable and effective use of natural resources.

In his address, making sustainable prosperity happen now to Eduskunta, Jairam Ramesh stressed sustainable prosperity had to be a collective effort. "The onus for this is as much on developed countries to share good and bad practices as it is on developing countries to get them right."

The global effort must address the issue of sharing atmospheric resources or ecological space on an equitable basis, "something almost the entire world, except the US accepts in some form or other."

At the same time, Ramesh called on domestic efforts in which national governments provide economic and other incentives to steer the economy towards sustainable consumption, which would lead to sustainable prosperity.

As part of the effort to meet the sustainability-poverty eradication challenge, Ramesh said that there was a need to revisit the concept of economic growth to reflect broader quality objectives such as prosperity and well-being.