India for paradigm shift in solving global warming problem

NEW DELHI: India today advocated a "paradigm shift" in finding a solution to global warming, days after UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC) warned that current trends in carbon emissions will lead to "disaster".

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, however, maintained that developed nations have a "historical responsibility" to address climate change issues which should be tackled "scientifically".

The Minister's statement assumes significance in the backdrop of upcoming UN-sponsored conferences- Montreal Protocol meet in Paris and UNFCCC in Peruvian capital Lima.

"Yesterday IPCC has given a report on environment and has said human actions have damaged it and human action only can change it and repair it. I believe yes we can. But we have to do it scientifically. There is an issue of historical responsibility and that must be addressed," Javadekar said.

He said that climate change cannot be addressed through governments, negotiations or world order but through community action in which both government and non-government's efforts should come together in changing consumption patterns.

"To mitigate this climate change, we need to think in a new paradigm. There needs to be a paradigm shift in our thinking as how we can do this. There are discourses," he said during a Royal Bank of Scotland Earth Heroes Awards 2014 function here.

Javadekar said that the report released in Copenhagen has said human actions have damaged climate and it was human action which will change and repair it.

"I believe yes we can. But we have to do it scientifically. There is an issue of historical responsibility and that must be addressed. There is also a responsibility which is different for different countries," the Minister said.

Stressing that the environment got polluted because of rapid industrial developments, he said that with industrial revolution 200 years ago, people started very heavily on changing the climate and impacting climate change which was now impacting the world environment.

"I believe it is not through government, negotiations, agreements or global order..after all it is the community action which helps.

"And when community action is a voluntary action, there government and non government efforts should come together, work on ground, change the habits of people, change the consumption patterns...and it is not only about developing countries. It's about developed world also," he said.