To help fast-growing India fight global warming as Japan and India look ahead to a framework after the landmark Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, the countries signed a deal on April 23. Under the agreement, Japan will invest in India's energy industry and transfer energy-saving technology. It comes two weeks after Japan sealed a similar agreement with China during a landmark visit here by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
Meeting with Japanese Trade Minister Akira Amari, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, said India "understands that global warming is a scientific fact backed by evidence."
Under the Kyoto Protocol aimed at tackling global warming, only 35 industrialized nations that have signed and ratified the pact are required to make targeted cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases. Big developing country polluters such as India and China have no such obligations, leading the U.S., the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gas, and Australia to shun the pact.
Japan, the host of the Kyoto Protocol, has sought a high profile in the fight against global warming. Press reports say Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President George W. Bush will agree at a summit this week to cooperate against global warming after the 2012 framework set by the Kyoto treaty.
A UN report this month warned that climate change is set to inflict damage in every continent, hitting poor countries hardest and threatening nearly a third of the world's species with extinction.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2007
