INDIA says it will not accept anything less than the right to lift its greenhouse gas emissions per head to Australian levels.
Addressing a minerals conference in Canberra last week, India's high commissioner, Sujatha Singh, spoke bluntly.
"You cannot have an agreement whereby countries that reach a certain standard of living, a certain level of development, turn around and tell the rest of the world that, 'That we have we get to keep; that what we have, you can't even aspire to'. That would be what a restriction on India's emissions would amount to," she said.
"We are telling you that we need to grow if we are going to give our 600 million people who live on under $2 US a day a decent standard of living. Our per capita emissions will increase, there's no doubt about it.
"But I am assuring you that they will never increase to what you yourselves are emitting.
"So you have an incentive to bring it down. Bring it down, we'll match it, we won't exceed it."
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