The statement comes a day before the crucial high level segment gets underway where ministers of 195 countries will deliberate on the draft negotiating text which emerged yesterday to reach a final agreement to tackle the challenge of climate change.

Environment minister Prakash Javadekar who arrived here to attend the high level segment said that although nations are "midway" in their journey to reach a new climate agreement, substance-wise it is "sometimes at crossroads" while hinting at the various unresolved issues which remain in the draft negotiating text.

Noting that the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a "fundamental global climate constitution", India also made it clear that any attempt to rewrite or to overwrite will "not be acceptable".

"We are at this time midway on our journey to reach new climate agreement, but substance-wise we are not midway but sometimes at crossroads. India is ready and committed to work with French Presidency which has done a monumental job over the last one year to build political momentum," Javadekar said.

Noting that India will not let the Paris conference fail in reaching its objectives, Javadekar said that the country will ensure that the seminal principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) is respected.

"India is also determined not to make Paris summit like past summits where we all returned home with false optimism and fictitious hopes.

"For India it is a question of present and future lives of our 1.27 billion people with aspirations to develop. We will not let this meeting fail to reach its objectives.

"India is here to ensure that seminal principle of CBDR is respected, and India is here to ensure that rich countries pay back their debt for overdraft that they have drawn on the carbon space," Javadekar said.

Scientists warn that the planet will become increasingly hostile to mankind as it warms, causing rise in sea levels and extreme weather patterns completely contrast to present times.

But to slow the climate change requires a rapid shift to clean energy — mainly moving away from burning coal, oil and gas for energy.

India is expected to become the world's biggest importer of coal by 2020 as it seeks to meet its energy requirements. India's national climate plan, submitted ahead of this meeting, suggests a significant role for coal going forward.

While India has been targeted for expanding its coal usage, New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment said focusing only on coal and India was an "unnecessary distraction" and creating "bad blood" at the conference.

The green body called it a "well planned campaign". A campaign to bring the narrative that India is going to burn the world with coal is the "only negative counter narrative" but it will not help, it said.

"We are disconcerted with the language being used here. Focusing on only coal and only India is an unnecessary distraction. It is creating a lot of bad blood in Paris," said CSE deputy director general Chandra Bhushan.

"It looks like a well-planned campaign to ensure that the issue of carbon budget where one needs to take into account the historical responsibility of nations (on emissions) and equity issue in the climate debate here is being treated as obstruction."

Hitting out at the US and other developed nations, Bhushan said coal is being used and will continue to be used in both developed and developing nations.

"Coal is a major source of power sector in both developed and developing countries. The availability of gas in India and China is low, we have coal and we use it," he said.

Bhushan said coal usage in the US in 2014 was more than what it was in 1990. The US consumes more fossil fuel than ever before in history, he said.

Another green advocacy group, Greenpeace has dismissed India's portrayal as a possible "spoiler" at the negotiations.

It said India can play a "heroic" role at the Paris climate talks, adding that the country was paying a price for something it was not responsible for.

Participants have said that the negotiations are too slow for a December 11 deadline. But such deadlines have been ignored earlier, with negotiators often deliberating through the night to get an accord to limit rising global temperatures this century to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.