India to resist Bush pressure on global warming

By Y.P. Rajesh

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India, one of the world's top polluters, will not accept equal responsibility to cut emissions and combat climate change despite U.S. President George W. Bush's proposal for a deal among top emitters, officials said on Sunday.

Bush, under fire for resisting tough action on global warming, last week called on 15 influential countries -- led by the United States, China, Russia and India -- to agree by the end of 2008 on a long-term goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The issue is a key topic of discussion at this week's G8 summit in Germany, where Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to come under pressure from Bush and leaders of other developed nations to do more to curb emissions.

"We are willing to work in partnership in this process to cut emissions but we cannot accept equal responsibility," said a top Indian foreign ministry official.

"We are not responsible for global warming so they cannot hold us up to it now," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "What is our per capita greenhouse gas emission? It is nothing."

India would work on a plan to propose a system under which responsibility to cut emissions would be differentiated depending on historical levels and per capita pollution, he said, without setting a deadline.

"Right now, this is all in the air," he said, referring to the Bush proposal.

India, whose economy has surged between 8 and 9 percent in recent years, currently contributes around three percent of global emissions as its consumption of fossil fuels gallops.