Developing countries say they will not compromise growth

Climate change:Developing countries, who stand to suffer the worst effects of climate change, said yesterday they would not shoulder full responsibility for a problem created mainly by the rich.

At the gathering of 2,400 of the world's most powerful people at Davos, leaders from India, China and Brazil asserted a right to stoke their own economies, even if greenhouse gas levels rise as a result.

"Compromising with the growth objective is simply out," said Montek Ahluwalia, deputy chief of India's planning commission.

Noting that many rich signatories to the Kyoto Protocol - an international climate change treaty - have missed their emissions-cutting targets, Mr Ahluwalia said the developing world wanted stronger support to help them reach environmental goals.

"Anything that creates an incentive mechanism with some assured financial support that would enable developing countries to put in place cleaner technologies, that should be welcome," he told a World Economic Forum session.

Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice-chairman of the Chinese national development and reform commission, told the same meeting that while China was committed to using energy more efficiently, the main burden for fighting global warming lay with Western powers.

"Apart from our own efforts we expect developed countries to play a more fundamental role," Mr Zhang said, listing investments in climate change research, technology transfers for emerging countries, assistance for adaptation, and leadership in setting concrete emissions targets as key requirements.

Global warming concerns have dominated much of the Davos proceedings this year, which started the day after US President George W Bush acknowledged climate change as "a challenging issue" in his state of the union address.

Without making specific pledges, rich-country participants at the World Economic Forum repeatedly raised the need to help developing countries - particularly booming economies such as China and India - respond to environmental pressures.

Emissions-cutting technologies were repeatedly cited in Davos as a necessity for developing world players to temper the environmental impacts of their fast growth.

Nicholas Stern, advisor to the British government on climate change, said getting such technology to countries like China and India was critical.

"This is not about stopping growth. It is about doing things in different ways," Mr Stern told Reuters Television. - (Reuters)