Rahul Bose slams developed nations for climate change

New Delhi, Nov 22 : Bollywood actor-activist Rahul Bose has slammed developed countries for preaching to developing nations to reduce "the use of energy sources" in order to cut down on "greenhouse gases (GHG) and carbon emissions" without practising the same.

"Developed nations have enjoyed unbridled use of the fossil fuels to reach a level of prosperity that is ten times our level. Now, just when we are attaining the first levels of prosperity you want us to reduce our energy consumption?" Rahul posted on blog www.gogreen.bigadda.com Sunday.

"How are we going to build our schools, roads, hospitals, factories? How are we going to achieve the golden triangle of health, education and employment for all?"

"The developed world, led by the US and Canada have refused to do any of the above. In fact the US refused to even sign up on the Kyoto Protocol which agreed on emission cuts by developed countries. Canada, that had agreed to these cuts walked out of the Kyoto Protocol, calling for its death in a conference in Bangkok a few weeks ago. The entire developing world walked out. They too, will not budge," he said.

The 42-year-old also slammed the regular meets to discuss the climate change without any positive outcome.

"... Approximately 200 countries on the planet have talked about the need to do something collectively about climate change (what used to be referred to as global warming) for the last 25 years, but have done nothing about it," he said.

"25 years later, melted glaciers later, vanished lakes later, thousands of forest fires later, the world's leaders are still squabbling about what should be done about climate change," he added.

The actor will be attending the 15th summit on climate change at Copenhagen Dec 6-18, as a global ambassador for British aid agency Oxfam.

--IANS