The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Madam Margaret Beckett touched upon various areas like the global warming, GHGs, Climate change issues in her inaugural address. She stated that the recent Summit on Sustainable development in Johannesburg reaffirmed the global commitment to meet the obligations of the Framework Convention.

The address by Dr.R.K.Pachauri, Chairman IPCC & DG, TERI gave an idea about the Climate Change issues in general. The technical sessions comprised of speakers from high profile companies like KPMG, British Petroleum, Ernst and Young, ERM, Mott Macdonald etc.

The KPMG group had Mr.Jed Jones elucidating about the climate change from the angle of sustainable development. Ms. Webber from British Petroleum spoke elaborately on the emissions trading issue.

The presentation from Ernst & Young deliberated about the flexibility mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol, which could be used by the Indian Corporates to finance their climate change projects.

Ms. Tatiana Bosteels, Core consultant with ERM and a member of Indo-UK Trade Mission - COP8 gave valuable inputs on the Climate change services potential in India. She spoke of the CDM market, implications of CDM for the host country, CDM project cycle etc. The Mott Macdonald group presented Power generation options from various resources.

The question sessions were very interactive with the panelists being equally enthusiastic about responding. The summary of all the deliberations was comprehensively provided by Mr.R.P.Sharma from Tata Steel.

The seminar provided an excellent for a for industry interaction with the UK trade mission and the highlight of the seminar was the announcement of partnership between both the countries. The announcement that CII would be taking a business delegation to UK around March next year was responded with huge applause by the audience.

The gathering was provided an excellent opportunity to network and liaise with the UK industry partners and learn from their experiences. The Indian industry represented by different sectors had the benefit of understanding the international perspective from their counterparts in the United Kingdom. Since the speakers were from well-established and renowned firms the knowledge sharing and learning from their experience made the seminar a great success. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Madam Margaret Beckett wished the seminar a great success and it did prove to be a success.