Addressing the opening of a sustainable development summit in New Delhi, Singh said that India was committed to tackling greenhouse gas emissions, but rejected any framework that deprived the country of its right to develop.

“It is necessary to recognise that currently there appears to be a lack of collective global will to address this problem with the seriousness it deserves,” the Prime Minister said. The threat of climate change has brought the world to a point where ‘the actions of each and every country’ affect the whole planet, Singh said, adding that cooperation between industrialized and developing nations was crucial.

But any cooperation must be based on “the right to development and the need for an equitable distribution of burden,” he said, arguing that per capita greenhouse emissions in industrialized nations were 10 times higher than developing countries. In this regard, he referred to the principles of UN framework convention on climate change which provide the basis of creating a workable framework based on a broad-based equitable and multi-lateral response to issues relating to climate change.

Emerging Asian giants India and China, both huge emitters of carbon, have long resisted calls to sign up to legally binding emissions cuts.

Later in the day, the summit heard from Hollywood star and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who said that people had to embrace green energy without ‘waiting for anybody or any international agreement.’ “It is great to hope for that but I would not wait. Everyone has to participate… do not hesitate,” he said, offering up India’s independence icon Mahatma Gandhi as a model for how to affect radical change through grassroots movements.