Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change must be effective, fair and equitable to all countries.
"Climate change is a global challenge. It can only be succesfully overcome through a global collaborative and cooperative effort. India is prepared to play its role as a responsible member of the international community and make its contribution.
"We are already doing so in the multi-lateral negotiations taking place under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The outcome that we are looking for must be effective. It must be fair and equitable," he said while launching the National Action Plan on Climate Change prepared by his advisory council on the issue.
He said every citizen of this plant must have an equal share of the planetory atmospheric space. Long-term convergence of per capita emissions is, therefore, the only equitable basis for a global compact on climate change.
In the meantime, the prime minister said, he has already declared that despite developmental imperatives, India's per capita GHG emissions would not exceed the per capita GHG emissions of the developed industrialised countries.
"This should be testimony enough, if one was needed, of the sincerity of purpose and sense of responsiblity we bring to the global task on hand," he said.
Singh said the National Action Plan incorporates India's vision of sustainable development and the steps that must be taken to implement it.
"The plan encompasses a very broad and extensive range of measures. This is how it should be since the challenge we face is both complex and cross-cutting in nature.
Nevertheless, we have decided to focus our national energies on eight national missions which will be pursued as key components of our strategy for sustainable development".
The National Missions include solar energy, enhanced energy efficiency, sustainable habitat, conserving water, sustaining the Himalayan eco-system, creating a green India, sustainable agriculture and establishing a strategic knowlege platform for climate change.
"Our vision is to make India's economic development energy efficient. Over a period of time we must pioneer a graduated shift from economic activity based on fossil fuels to one based on non-fossil fuels and from reliance on non-renewable and depleting sources of energy to renewable sources," Singh said, adding in this strategy the Sun occupied centrestage being the original source of all energy.
He said the government would pool its scientific, technical and managerial talents with sufficient financial resources to develop solar energy as a source of abundant energy to power the economy and transform the lives of people.
The prime minister said success in this endevour would change the face of India and enable it to change the destinies of people around the world.
"In pursuing this and other ambitious goals, I believe we have the greatest assets in the wisdom, creativity and enterprise of our people. The plan intends to go beyond government to draw upon these assets," he said.
