By KUNA,
New Delhi : India Monday launched its National Action Plan on Climate Change aimed at achieving sustainable development and addressing the issue of climate change.
“The Plan encompasses a very broad and extensive range of measures. We have decided to focus our national energies on Eight National Missions which will be pursued as key components of our strategy for sustainable development. These include National Missions on Solar Energy, on Enhanced Energy Efficiency, on Sustainable Habitat, on Conserving Water, on Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem, on creating a ‘Green India’, on Sustainable Agriculture and finally, on establishing a Strategic Knowledge Platform for Climate Change, ” Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh said while unveiling the Plan here. “Our vision is to make Indias economic development energy-efficient. Over a period of time, we must pioneer a graduated shift from economic activity based on fossil fuels to one based on non-fossil fuels and from reliance on non-renewable and depleting sources of energy to renewable sources of energy. We will pool our scientific, technical and managerial talent, with sufficient financial resources, to develop solar energy as a source of abundant energy to power our economy and to transform the lives of our people,” the Prime Minister stressed. “The Plan incorporates Indias vision of sustainable development and the steps we must take to implement it and implement it effectively. With this launch, the Government has fulfilled its solemn commitment to announce the National Plan by the middle of this year. This reflects the great importance we attach to mobilising our national energies and resources in meeting the challenge of climate change. Without a careful long-term strategy, climate change may undermine our development efforts, with adverse consequences, across the board, on our peoples livelihood and the living standards,” Dr Singh pointed out. “India has a civilizational legacy which treats Nature as a source of nurture, the time has come for us to draw deep from ancient tradition and launch India and its billion people on a path of ecologically sustainable development. Our people have a right to economic and social development and to discard the ignominy of widespread poverty.
For this we need rapid economic growth. But I also believe that ecologically sustainable development need not be in contradiction to achieving our growth objectives. In fact, we must have a broader perspective on development,” the Prime Minister said. “Today, Climate Change is a global challenge. It can only be successfully overcome through a global, collaborative and cooperative effort. India is prepared to play its role as a responsible member of the international community and makes its own contribution. We are already doing so in the multilateral negotiations taking place under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. I have already declared, as Indias Prime Minister, that despite our developmental imperatives, our per capita GHG emissions will not exceed the per capita GHG emissions of the developed industrialised countries. This should be testimony enough, if one was needed, of the sincerity of purpose and the sense of responsibility we bring to the global task on hand,” he noted.