The country’s stand will be put forth by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the G-8 Outreach Summit at the German resort of Helligendamm today.

Setting the tone for the meeting of leaders of Group of Eight industrialised nations with five outreach countries, the Prime Minister yesterday said “due care” must be taken not to allow growth and development of developing countries to be undermined while dealing with climate protection, energy efficiency and the conclusion of the Doha round of WTO talks.

India has held that countries responsible for creating the problem of climate change should come out in a big way to solve this issue. It argues that the greenhouse gas emissions of developed countries even today are many times more than developing countries like India.

The Prime Minister is expected to remind the developed countries that as agreed in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, they should act in accordance with their “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”. He is also likely to emphatically state that climate change concerns should be integrated with development strategies.

Ahead of their meeting with G-8 leaders, the O-5 countries comprising India, China, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico will have a meeting here to outline their positions on global economy, climate change, protection of intellectual property rights, energy and environment.

At the summit, Singh will bluntly tell the developed nations that more and not less development was the best way for developing countries to address themselves to the issue of preserving the environment and protecting the climate.

Significantly, India, China and Brazil hold similar views on climate change. India is also willing to go along with certain elements of Bush’s address on the issue relating to clean technologies, energy security and sharing of IPR regime.

But, India objects to the developing countries being asked to take the brunt though they accounted for the vast bulk of the emissions already in the atmosphere. India is advocating an agreement on IPRs on technologies for mitigation efforts in developing countries while giving them access to technologies.

India argues that its per capital green house gas (GHG) emissions are currently only 23 per cent of global average, four per cent of the US, 12 per cent of European Union and 15 per cent of Japan. To reinforce its contention, India points out that with 17 per cent of the world population, it has only four per cent of GHP emissions. (PTI)