India to pressurise developed nations on carbon emission cuts: Shyam Saran

New Delhi, Mar 20 : The Prime Minister's Special Envoy on Climate Change, Shyam Saran, has said India would pressurise developed nations to commit on carbon emission cuts.

"We bring about as much pressure as we can so that the developed countries deliver on the commitment that they have already made, which is what they are trying to wriggle out of," Saran told reporters here during a seminar.

India joined almost all other major greenhouse gas emitters earlier this month in signing up to the climate accord struck in Copenhagen, boosting a deal strongly favoured by the United States.

More than 100 nations have now endorsed the Copenhagen Accord, a non-binding agreement reached after two weeks of tortuous wrangling at a 194-nation summit in December.

The accord plans 100 billion dollars a year in climate aid for developing nations from 2020 and seeks to limit global warming to below two degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times, but produced no timetable of emission limits to reach that goal.

But, Saran feared that the global financial crunch might cloud further negotiations.

"I am not very optimistic about the results, why? Because even at Copenhagen it was very obvious that as long as you have this huge economic and financial crisis which is preoccupying certainly, we are perhaps less impacted, but most of the industrialized world is very badly impacted by this and that doesn''t seem to be much sign that they are actually coming out of it," he said.