Swedish King chairs dialogue with focus on circular economy approaches in India

Swedish King Carl Gustaf XVI on Tuesday chaired a dialogue on circular economy approaches in India alongside senior Swedish and Indian government officials in New Delhi and discussed current initiatives underway for tackling the issues of air pollution and waste in India.

At the dialogue, the Swedish King spoke about the importance of improving the quality of forests and acknowledged that the round-table made him feel positive that many different stakeholders are committed to working on conservation and climate change, the Swedish embassy in India said in a statement.

The dialogue saw the participation of various stakeholder groups "comprising Swedish and Indian senior Government officials, as well as the academic, multilateral, private sector and non-governmental organisations."

"The key objective of this discussion was to highlight current initiatives underway towards tackling the issues of air pollution and waste in India. Some Indo-Swedish partnerships that are introducing innovative technologies for monitoring air pollution, mitigating carbon emissions, and products made from biomass waste were also featured," the statement read.

Speaking on the occasion, K VijayRaghavan, the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India (PSA) emphasised Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commitment to combating climate change and converting waste into value through various missions.

Given the imperative for industrial growth in India to achieve various development goals, the joint discussion amongst the stakeholders pointed to opportunities that can help balance growth within a resource efficiency framework.

Bringing together Indo-Swedish companies that can play a key role in accelerating the circular economy and tackling air pollution in India, heads of Tetrapak, Ikea and Ericsson shared their current efforts and their commitment to sustainability through their business models in India.

Government officials from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Ministry of Agriculture and the Forest Survey of India (FSI) shared how renewable energy, agroforestry and enhancing forest cover activities in India are working towards a climate target.

The dialogue coincided with the second day of the UN Conference on Climate Change in Madrid, which has already highlighted the urgent need to cut emissions from the global economy and appealed to nations to hold warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius target below pre-industrial level.

This is a goal that will require nations to double their efforts from previous commitments to reduce emissions to stop the irreversible impacts of climate change.