Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the industrialised countries should bear the burden of shifting from fossil fuels to clean energy use, as they have been the biggest polluters.
Speaking at the international conference on clean energy he pitched for subsidies for the use of green energy by bringing policy change. “Investments in green energy are subject to technological, commercial and regulatory risks. For the moment green energy is not viable on its own without subsidy or regulatory incentives.
Investors obviously need assurance that these incentives will continue. Market forces alone will not provide sufficient financing in this environment unless the risks of policy change are appropriately addressed,” he said.
He also rued the “painfully slow” progress on climate change negotiations as the goal of stabilising global temperatures at acceptable levels is “nowhere in sight.”
“They (advanced countries) are historically responsible for the bulk of the accumulated GHG emissions and this alone suggests a greater responsibility. They also have high per capita income which give them the highest capacity to bear the burden. They are technically the most advanced, and to that extent best placed to provide workable solutions not only for themselves but for the entire world,” the Prime Minister said.
Singh went on to add that though developing countries account for 82 percent of the world’s population, they merely use 55 percent of the available global supply of energy. If they were to follow the industrialised countries in meeting their energy requirements through fossil fuel-based energy, it would have an impact on the global climate.