Climate change issues need to be dealt in coordinate manner

NEW DELHI: As India's dependence on coal for meeting its energy needs will continue till an effective clean alternate is developed, energy and issues-related to climate change should be dealt with in a coordinated manner, a prominent climate change expert said on Monday.

At the strategy session on Clean Coal initiative, organised here by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Shyam Saran, Special Envoy to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, not only India but the USA too is yet to develop alternatives to coal to curb carbon emissions.

In this backdrop, he said, "India and USA, whose power portfolio are driven by large coal-based thermal plants, are going to face tremendous pressure during the multilateral talks on climate" at Copenhagen later this year.

"India has proposed setting up technology innovation centres in various locations globally to disseminate information on clean coal technology.

These centres have gathered global interest as a platform to propagate clean coal technology within the developed and developing world," Saran added.