NEW DELHI, Nov. 3: The British foreign secretary, Ms Margaret Beckett, said India should do more to tackle the issue of climate change which will also have disastrous effect in South Asia.

“How we respond to climate change will have a direct impact on everything that we as governments want to achieve,” she said at a business conference today.

A former environment minister, Ms Beckett said the world was already dealing with the “destabilising” effects of unsustainable development. “An unstable climate will place huge additional strain on these tensions. In many cases, they are already at breaking point and climate change has the potential to stretch them far beyond it,” she said.

Talking about the responsibility of governments to respond to the challenge, Ms Beckett asserted, “India, of course, will be no exception”.

“Indeed if we don’t manage climate change right it will greatly add to the problems with which you are already grappling on resource management, access to fresh water, food supply, migration, poverty, energy security, and regional security,” she said.

Referring to the widely-publicised report of the British economist, Mr Nicholas Stern, which recently again opened up the debate over climate change, Ms Beckett said much of his work had been grounded in his experience at Palanpur village in Uttar Pradesh and his annual visits to India in the last 30 years. “So his conclusions reflect not only his professional authority as an economist, but also his deep personal knowledge of India. Indeed, it was Prime Minister Singh who first encouraged Sir Nicholas to come to India in 1974 as a fellow academic economist and they have stayed in close touch since then,” said Ms Beckett.