NEW DELHI, Jan 3 (KUNA) — Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday called upon the industrialised nations to undertake corrective steps to reduce the impact of climate change on global population. Addressing the 95th Indian Science Congress in the Southern Indian city of Visakhapatnam today, Dr Manmohan Singh said, “The world cannot walk down the path of environmentally harmful development that developed industrial economies have pursued thus far.
They undoubtedly bear the greatest responsibility for what has happened and must also bear therefore the greatest responsibility for correcting the damage.” “But we too have to take action. We cannot replicate the western model of wasteful consumption and environmentally harmful industrialization. We need an alternative approach more mindful of our resource endowments, and also of the need to avoid damage to our environment. Mahatma Gandhis famous dictum that our planet has enough to cater to all our needs but not enough to cater to our greed must never be lost sight of,” the Prime Minister stressed. “Climate change poses a great and a new challenge to our developmental prospects and to the livelihood of our people, particularly those living on the edges of subsistence. We need a global response, a national response and a local response. An effective global response has to grapple with issues of sustainability, issues of equity and thirdly issues of efficiency,” he added. “Efficiency involves examination of alternative techniques and policies which will yield the desired outcome at least possible cost.
Our Research and Development community has therefore to be revitalized to make an appropriate contribution to the ongoing global debate on all these three issues I have highlighted. I have asked the Planning Commission to work on this issue and come up with alternative options open to us,” he said, adding the government was in the process of identifying a centre of national excellence on climate change. “At the last G-8 meeting in Heiligendamm, Germany, I said India is ready to accept the obligation that our per capita emissions of CO2 will never exceed the per capita emissions of advanced developed countries. This should incentivise developed countries to achieve quick reductions in their per capita emissions, to limit the growth of emissions from developing countries. Their success will generate technologies which will help the entire human kind and the developing countries to limit their own emissions as well,” Dr Manmohan Singh said.