India will spare no efforts to contribute to the success of post-Copenhagen process, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared Friday as he announced the launch of a National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency aimed at cutting carbon emissions by 99 million tonnes.
Inaugurating an international summit on climate change here, Singh said India has already committed itself to a path of sustainable development based on a graduated shift to the
extent possible from the use of fossil fuels to renewable and clean energy, including nuclear energy.
Within the ambit of our National Action Plan on Climate Change, India has already unveiled one of the world's most ambitious plans for promoting solar energy, targeting an installed capacity of 20,000 MW by the year 2022, he told the meet being attended by Presidents, Prime Ministers and Energy Ministers of several countries.
"I wish to assure this distinguished gathering that India will spare no effort in contributing to the success of the post-Copenhagen process," he said at the 10th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit.
"We will soon launch an ambitious National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency that will put in place an innovative policy and regulatory regime to unlock the market for energy efficiency, estimated at over 15 billion dollar,"
Singh said.
He said the initiative is expected to lead to avoidance of capacity addition of nearly 20,000 MW and reduce carbon dioxide emissions of almost 99 million tonnes.
Referring to the earlier announcement of steps by India to cut emission intensity by 20-25 per cent by 2020 on 2005 levels, the Prime Minister said, "We are also very serious about fulfilling and perhaps even exceeding this target."
In the case of developing nations, climate action has to be combined with their central developmental goals, he said.
"In a poor country like India, where hope and deprivation co-exist, sustainable development requires that the needs of the present are given at least as much attention as the needs of the future," Singh observed.
Climate action that delays or makes more difficult the basic task of poverty eradication will be difficult to implement, he said.
"That is why in our National Action Plan on Climate Change, we have given priority to those activities that mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and also deliver substantial collateral benefits by reducing poverty or by improving local
environmental quality and human health," Singh said.
"We recognise that we have to adopt a different model of growth to that followed by the industrialised countries. But a lot of effort is needed to operationalise the meaning and precise content of sustainable development," he said.
India is also establishing a National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology in Dehradun, the Prime Minister said.
He noted that the government has already established an Indian Network for Comprehensive Climate Change Assessment, a network of over 120 research institutions.
This would bring out regular reports on the impacts of climate change on different sectors and different regions of the country, he said adding that the first such assessment would be released in November this year.