Mr Ramesh, a vegetarian, says those who refrain from eating beef are helping to fight climate change. "The single most important measure that can be taken in the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to stop eating beef," he said.

Mr Ramesh has won strong support in his campaign against beef-eating from R.K. Pachauri, an Indian climate change scientist who headed the influential United Nations panel on climate change.

"I'm happy that the minister is agreeing with me on this," Dr Pachauri said. "If you look at the beef cycle today, you first clear forests, which increases emissions, then you feed cattle all kinds of food grain, which is energy intensive, and then you kill and refrigerate these animals and then they are transported long distances, then you buy it and refrigerate it.

''If you count all the emissions associated with this entire cycle it is huge."

Last year a UN Food and Agriculture Organisation study found that meat production accounted for about one-fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions - emissions that are causing temperatures to rise and changing climate patterns.

Mr Ramesh's comments come two weeks before the Copenhagen summit on climate change, at which the position of India and its neighbour China will be crucial to any international deal.

India has argued consistently that the main responsibility for reducing greenhouse gases must be taken by wealthy Western countries with high per-capita emissions. It has resisted pressure to adopt binding targets for limiting its own greenhouse gas emissions. Indian officials say any climate change treaty must be equitable.

Dr Pachauri said the Indian Government was "well within its rights" to expect more from rich countries.

"The developed world has just not lived up to its obligations or responsibilities.

"The concentration of these gases in the atmosphere is entirely the result of 150 years of industrialisation and so-called economic development in the developed world, as a result of which we have the problem we have today."

But Dr Pachauri said India needed to do more to project what it was doing domestically to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

India's position on climate change is likely to come under fresh scrutiny this week, when the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, visits Washington for talks with the US President, Barack Obama.