India plans global warming roadmap by year-end

By Nita Bhalla

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India took the first step towards developing a national plan to tackle the effects of global warming and assess its own greenhouse gas emissions on Friday, amid mounting international pressure.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Council on Climate Change held its first meeting in a bid to come up with a clear plan ahead of a key United Nations climate change meeting in Bali in December, but did not set any overall emissions targets.

Singh said given India's dependence on monsoon rains, Himalayan glacier-fed rivers and its long coastline, climate change would have a serious impact.

He said the country was already focusing on energy sources capable of reducing emissions, such as hydro, nuclear and solar power, but more had to be done.

"We must at the same time explore ways of new and greener ways of development," Singh, who chaired the meeting, told council members.

He called for a review of past efforts and plans for the future to be ready by November.

A strategy to deal with the melting of Himalayan glaciers, which feed many of Asia's major rivers and upon which India's food security depends, should be developed, he said.

Singh added that an afforestation program called "Green India" would be launched in August to replant 6 million ha (15 million acres) of degraded forests.

He also said environmentally friendly strategies should be incorporated in all future development.

India, whose economy has grown by 8-9 percent a year in recent years, is one of the world's top polluters, contributing around 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions as its consumption of fossil fuels gathers pace.

But as a developing nation, India is not required to cut emissions -- said to be rising by between 2 and 3 percent a year -- under the Kyoto Protocol, despite mounting pressure from environmental groups and industrialized nations.

"India is now responding to the urgency of the situation," said Sunita Narain, council member and director of the New Delhi-based think-tank, the Centre for Science and Environment.

"We have never been very good at stating our position and it is the right time to articulate all the things that India is doing and plans to do to mitigate and adapt to global warming."

NO EMISSIONS TARGET

The new national plan will not include any overall emissions target -- the country says it must use more energy to lift its population from poverty and that its per-capita emissions are a fraction of those in rich states that have burnt fossil fuels unhindered since the Industrial Revolution.