World | India
Gas emissions to drop by 25% by 2020
India said yesterday its existing energy policy would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by over 25 per cent by 2020, but warned pressure to set mandatory targets to curb global warming would hurt economic growth.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:00 May 29, 2007
New Delhi: India said yesterday its existing energy policy would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by over 25 per cent by 2020, but warned pressure to set mandatory targets to curb global warming would hurt economic growth.
Currently contributing around 3 per cent of global carbon emissions, India is already among the world's top polluters, along with the United States, China, Russia and Japan.
Despite pressure from industrialised nations and environmental groups to cut emissions, India is not required under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions - said to be rising annually by 2-3 per cent - presently.
Prodipto Ghosh, India's environment secretary, told a news conference that India was an environmentally responsible country which actively enforced programmes on energy efficiency and promotion of renewable energy, which were paying off.
"Our modelling approaches show the effect of many of our policies taken together that the year 2020 will result in a more than a 25 per cent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions," said Ghosh.
More pressure
Booming economies India and China are likely to face more pressure at next week's summit of the Group of Eight in Germany to do more to cut emissions.
Ghosh said India was spending 2.17 per cent of GDP annually on addressing the variability of climate change through projects in agriculture, coastal zones and health and sanitation.
Experts say the Indian subcontinent will be one of the most affected regions in the world, with more frequent natural disasters of greater severity, more diseases such as malaria and greater hunger.
Ghosh said global warming was the fault of industrialised nations who should set higher cuts in emissions targets for themselves, rather than pressuring developing countries.
The world's richest countries, including the United States, contributed about 60 per cent of total emissions in 2004 and account for 77 per cent of cumulative emissions since the start of the Industrial Revolution, a US study reported this month.
"Developing countries like India have not historically, are not now and will not in the foreseeable future be a significant contributor to emissions," said Ghosh.
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