Climate change: PM asks states to ready their action plans

Quelling all doubts about Indias approach towards climate change,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday sent out a clear message to state environment ministers....

Quelling all doubts about Indias approach towards climate change,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday sent out a clear message to state environment ministers that New Delhi was seriously concerned as it was threatening our fragile ecosystems and asked them to come up with state-level action plans to deal with the challenge. The state-level plans,he said,should be consistent with the strategies identified in the National Action Plan on Climate Change which was unveiled by him last year.

Addressing the first-ever conference of state ministers of environment and forests,Singh chose to speak about climate change first while the issue per se was not included in the agenda for the meeting. Climate change is today a major global challenge. The world is concerned about it. So are we. There should be no doubt in anybodys mind that we fully recognise not just how important this issue is to India but also our obligation to address it. We are conscious of our responsibilities to both the present and future generations and seek to enhance the ecological sustainability of our development path, he said.

Singhs unambiguous message comes at a time when voices of skepticism are emanating from within the Environment Ministry and the Planning Commission about Indias negotiating position ahead of the Copenhagen Summit. To add to it was the divergent views in the administration over India accepting a Major Economies Forum statement to limit the rise in average global temperatures to within two degrees of pre-industrial levels.

The subtext of Singhs statement was that India cannot live in a denial mode any more vis-à-vis climate change as New Delhi and other developing countries would be among those most seriously impacted by the consequences of it. At the same time,India will not at any cost accept any emission cuts but would seek to negotiate hard to get a better deal.

The Prime Minister had made the Governments stand on the issue amply clear when he told Parliament last month itself that India was willing to do more on the issue of climate change provided there are credible arrangements to provide both additional financial support as well as technological transfers from developed to developing countries. In his Independence Day speech also,the PM had pointed out that India wanted to tackle the problem of climate change in partnership with other countries.

At Tuesdays meeting,Singh also spoke about the need for adopting an environment friendly growth strategy. In dealing with the challenge of climate change and environmental degradation we face the unfair burden of past mistakes not of our making. But,as we go forward in the march of development we have the opportunity not to repeat those past mistakes. Our growth strategy can be and should be innovative and different. We are still at early stages of industrialisation and urbanisation. Our energy needs will increase sharply in the decades to come. We can and we must walk a different road,an environment friendly road, he said.

For this,he said India need access to new technologies that are already available with the developed countries and must also make own investments in new environment-friendly technologies. Singh also said that the multiple environmental crises have created an alarming situation referring to climate change,prospect of an impending drought,water scarcity and pollution.