United Nations, New York City, 10 April 2014

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization along with the Permanent Missions of the Philippines and Sweden and panel members, spoke of an Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development. Members spoke of concrete targets which are needed between governments and corporations.

Permanent Representative of the Philippines, H.E Labran Cabactulan spoke about the Manilla Declaration which was signed in 2009. The declaration stated low carbon and resource efficiency. He reiterated the importance to correlate industrialization along with sustainable consumption and production.

Panel member and Professor Claudia Sheinbaum-Pardo from the National Autonomous University of Mexico shared alarming statistics of the waste humans have created in the past decades. Three times more cement is being produced than it was 30 years ago and 1 and a half more steel as well. The Professor assured panel and members that the traditional ways to reduce fossil fuels will not work in this case. With the availability of cement becoming a great concern, many countries in the world have adapted to substitution materials. While the United States uses 25% TSR (TSR=thermal substitution rate), and India uses just a little over 1% the Netherlands uses up to 83% TSR

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Panel member and Executive Director of the Institute for Industrial Productivity (IIP), Jigar Shah spoke about the prospects in India in regards to efficient resource management. India hopes to move from 1% to 15% TSR by 2050 in the hopes of reducing fossil fuel emissions. This caused concern as a representative of DESA asked what if we don’t have enough time? Is it too late?

H.E John Ashe, President of the General Assembly recognized the global increase in consumption and production and thanked organizations like UNIDO and UNEP for recognizing and tackling such obstacles. Mr. Ashe also spoke of a high level meeting which will take place on May 21st and 22nd for the implementation of industrialization and sustainable development to the 2015 Post-Development Agenda.

Meeting Title: Forum on “Partnering for Efficient Resource Management: Achieving Inclusive and Sustainable Development” (co-organized by UNIDO and the missions of Philippines and Switzerland).

Key Speakers: H.E Remigi Winzap, H.E Labran Cabactulan, Claudia Sheinbaum-Pardo, Jigar Shah

Written by WIT Representative: Diego Atehortua