Japan offers assistance to India to fight climate change

New Delhi, Aug 22 (UNI) Exhorting India to take a lead in the fight against climate change, visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe today offerred ''significant assistance to New Delhi in improving energy efficiency related technologies''.

Mr Abe also stresed that the next Kyoto Protocol should prescribe mandatory carbon emission cuts for all major emitters, but said the new framework should take into consideration each country's developmental concerns.

''The structure must achieve compatibility between environmental protection and the economic growth by utilising advances in techologies to the greatest extent possible'', he said.

Under the current Kyoto Protocol which is going to expire in 2012, India along with other developing countries has been freed of any obligations for emission cuts, while targets have been fixed for developed nations. However, The US has refused the join the protocol.

The Japanese Prime Minister sought India's support for his 'Cool Earth 50' initiative, put forward not very long ago, to address global warming, envisaging cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent from the current level by the year 2050.

''There is no nation on earth for whom leading the fight against climate change would be so entirely fitting, because no people has had a harmonious coexistence with nature so central to their philosophy throughout history as the people of India,'' he said.

''I urge you to walk with us this difficult but unavoidable raod where we strive to strike a balance between economic growth and fight against climate change. Of course, the assistance that Japan would be able to offer can be expected to be of some significance, particulary in the field of energy efficiency related technology''.

UNI