Environmental pact is not detrimental to Kyoto protocol, India said

India said Friday that a regional environment pact to deal with global warming is not detrimental either to commitment made in the Kyoto Protocol or to the developing countries like India.

"The regional pact is only a vision statement. We have not made any commitment on reducing greenhouse gas emission in it," India's Environment Minister A Raja said in the Parliament.

Responding to concerns raised by some parliamentarians, the minister said India had not succumbed to US pressure in signing the regional pact, which some members alleged was dangerous to humanity.

India is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol. However, the United States, which is one of the major greenhouse gas emitters, is not a signatory to the protocol, informs China View.

A US-led, six-nation pact to develop clean energy technologies and combat global warming was launched yesterday with its members denying it was designed to undermine the Kyoto protocol.

The new agreement, announced by the US deputy secretary of state, Robert Zoellick, at an Asia-Pacific security forum in Laos, was to provide practical solutions to excess carbon emissions, he said.

The six club members - China, Australia, Japan, India, the US and South Korea - will cooperate on the development, transfer and sale of clean technologies, to promote the efficient use of fuels.

Technology that enables coal to be burned more efficiently and captures carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere is top of the agenda.

Alongside wind, solar, hydropower and geothermal power sources, new nuclear power facilities get equal billing, which will further dismay the environmental lobby, reports Guardian Unlimited.