Buddhadeb blames US for global warming
21 Aug, 2007, 0037 hrs IST, TNN
KOLKATA: West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Monday accused the US of being "largely responsible for global warming". His comments come at a time when the CPIM leadership has locked horns with the Congress-led UPA government over the controversial Indo-US nuke deal.
Addressing a seminar on global warming organised by Bengal National Chamber of Commerce, Mr Bhattacharjee said: "It is strange that the Americans who are responsible for global warming are now advising us on how to improve environment.
Way back in 1992, it was decided by the nations of the world to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by 50%. And it is the US in particular, who have violated the Kyoto Protocol."
"The global warming created by the US and other European nations have led to water scarcity and tropical diseases the world over," said a visibly agitated Mr Bhattacharjee.
Amid this, Planning Commission member Kirit S Parikh stressed that the Indo-US nuke deal was extremely critical to the country. "If we can import Uranium, our nuclear power generation programme can be preponed to a great extent. The scope of nuclear power generation will be limited without import of uranium."
"Nuclear power generation capacity in India is restricted to the availability of uranium from domestic sources. Unless the source of uranium supply is opened up for India, installed capacity will grow to only 48,000MW by 2030 from the current level of 10,000MW," he said.
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