RBI’s Governor emphasizes to build green economies in the South-Asian region to deal with climate change

Reserve Bank of India’s Governor Shaktikanta Das has emphasized the cooperation among South-Asian countries to build green economies in the region to effectively deal with rising challenges posed by climate change. Addressing the IMF Conference in New Delhi today, Mr. Das said, the South-Asian region is vulnerable to climate change due to its large population and degradation of natural resources. He said that cooperation was required among south-Asian countries to move in the direction of green transition at a faster pace with reasonable cost. He also stressed strengthening cooperation in the energy security sector as south-Asian countries have a high reliance on fossil fuels. Listing out the various challenges faced by the region, Mr. Das said that these challenges had been accentuated by the Covid pandemic, spillovers of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, inflation, and financial market tightening across the globe. He highlighted various measures to deal with these challenges saying that efforts need to be made to tame inflation, and external debt vulnerabilities and raise productivity.