"India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all".
Will Durant
The Independent reports from Durban that India is now the leading opponent of a "new comprehensive global-warming treaty":
The Indians are refusing to approve anything that might put a brake on their economy, now expanding with growth in 2010 estimated at 10.4 per cent. Its carbon emissions are growing at more than 9 per cent a year, the fastest of any major nation, and the country has shot up to become the world's third biggest carbon emitter, after China and the US.
But the Indians are relying on this growth to take hundreds of millions of their nearly 1.2 billion people out of poverty and they want nothing to do with curbing these emissions.
Instead, along with some other emerging economies, India is seeking a renewal of the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 climate agreement due to run out next year under which Western industrialised countries agreed to make reductions in their emissions of greenhouse gases, while developing countries such as China and India had no obligations to make cuts at all.
India has to be congrutaled for its wise policy. That India supports a renewal of the Kyoto Protocol is not surprising, either. Why should India - and other developing countries - want to oppose this self-inflicted madness that is seriously hurting the economies of its competitors, the western industrialised countries?
(image by Wikipedia)
No comments:
Post a Comment