Prague - India is prepared to cooperate on curbing global
warming - but not at the expense of its own economic development,
Indian Foreign Minister Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna warned Monday.
His comments came at a bilateral meeting with EU foreign ministers
in Prague.
'India is a developing country,' he said, speaking after talks
with EU diplomats. 'We have challenges and we will have to
concentrate on development. And development takes precedence over
everything else.'
He said that India 'will continue to cooperate with the rest of
the world' on climate change but must stick to its priority to
improve the lives of its citizens.
India has so far rejected calls for making a binding pledge on
cutting emissions of greenhouse gases that are blamed for man-made
temperature changes.
The EU has urged the world's major economies, including developing
countries, to make legally-binding commitments to cut emissions in
the run up to a United Nations conference to be held in December in
Copenhagen.
That top-level summit is to come up with a deal on curbing
global warming that should replace the existing Kyoto Protocol, which
expires in 2012.
A follow-up EU/India summit was agreed for Delhi in November.
The EU has pledged to cut its emissions by 20 per cent of 1990
levels by 2020 and offered to reduce emissions by 30 per cent if
other developed countries joined the effort.
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