By IANS,
New Delhi : India is committed to sustainable development but will have to fight for its fair share of development space to ensure its growth, the Economic Survey 2012-13 said Wednesday.
The survey emphasised that equitable access to global atmospheric resources had to be protected and addressed under any climate change regime.
“Based on historic emissions and responsibilities, developed countries should take the lead in cutting down carbon emission. India will have to fight for its fair share of carbon and development space,” the annual survey by the finance ministry said.
Outlining efforts made by India towards sustainable development, the survey said the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017) focused on “environment sustainability”.
“India is on the right track with right enabling environment and has a number of achievements to its credit. However, the challenge while India is growing is to identify the key drivers and enablers of growth — be it infrastructure, transport, housing or agriculture and to make these sectors grow sustainably,” it said.
The survey also pointed at a delay in finances pledged by the developed nations to developing countries to adapt to sustainable measures.
“To grow sustainably, a country needs new and additional resources for meeting economic well-being needs with greater environment sustainability. Moreover, resource crunch is the stumbling blocks for countries like India,” it said.
“While it makes efforts to efficiently and expeditiously bring price signals and other policy instruments into play, India could do much more if new and additional finance and technology are made available”.
Calling for immediate action to check global warming, the survey said any global action to combat and contain this decay should be fair, just and equitable for all countries so that the future we want would be a future in which there was ecological and economic space for sustainable development for all.