C.K. Mishra, Ministry of Environment Forest & Climate Change inaugurated the India Pavilion at the 25th session of Conference of Partiesunder the UN framework convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC COP25), in Madrid.
Mr. OwaisSarmad, Deputy Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC Secretariat, Bonn also graced the occasion. The event was also attended by delegates of UNFCCC COP25and partner Ministries among others.
In his address, Secretary, MoEFCC said that this year India is celebrating 150 years of the birth anniversary of Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. The India Pavilion has been designed to depict this theme, in particular Mahatma Gandhi's life and messages around sustainable living.
The Pavilion has a conceptual model of Gandhi Ji's Ashram, where Mahatma's philosophy of minimizing wants and living with simplicity is espoused. The pavilion also depicts the present and traces the arc into the future of the country, where Government of India is implementing ambitious solutions to deal with the issue of climate change, inspired by the teachings of the Mahatma, and our cultural underpinnings based on the principles of sustainable consumption and production. As such, the pavilion has a special focus on 'sustainable lifestyles' as a solution to climate change.
C.K. Mishra said that Gandhi ji was ahead of his times when he spoke of sustainable development and need to care for our earth and its resources. To mark the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the Pavilion features the humble 'Charkha' or the spinning wheel which is the physical embodiment of the Gandhian principles of perseverance, self-sufficiency and sustainability. The Secretary invited delegates and participants representing 197 countries to try their hand at spinning the 'fabric of sustainability' at the India Pavilion.
