Sustainable Development for the Future

The Urban Sustainability Conference started at the Asia-Pacific-Weeks in Berlin on Tuesday. The conference will address the challenges of urbanisation, which is affecting cities all over Asia, America and Europe. For the first time ever, more people are living in cities than in villages.

Mega-cities in particular will face several challenges. Especially in terms of transportation, electricity, water and waste. To cope with the challenges, Jerome Ringo, the president of Apollo Alliance sees the future in alternative energies:

"We recognise that we need to invest in research and our development of our alternative energy and not be one-dimensional and not depend only on oil and gas -- we will create a new green economy."

"We believe that in ten years we can find 300 billion dollars in investment and create 3 million new jobs. The debate about jobs versus the environment is over. It is now about jobs for the environment."

Environmental protection

Apollo Alliance is an NGO in the United States, which wants to make people aware of environmental protection as well as saving natural resources.

For Ravi Shankar, the founder of the International Association for Human Rights in India, the key to solving the problems lies in awareness of the environment and the importance of natural products.

"When Mahatma Gandhi got a letter, he would tear the letter and reverse it back and write on the back of the cover. Cultivating a fashion towards natural products and not wasting a piece of paper. People don't know what happens in the environment if they're not sensitive to it."

Shankar and his organisation have established a "Five-H programme" -- H for health, hygiene, homes, human values and harmony. By making improvements, in these areas the organisation is trying to make rural areas more liveable and, therefore, to slow down migration to urban centres.