India should be made climate smart.

India will invest billions of dollars in public infrastructure over the next few years. Government policies also aim to massively increase private investments across sectors - manufacturing, services and agriculture. Each of these policies and investments will have time horizons spanning 5 to 50 years.
  Examples of planned infrastructure include - 100 new airports with an investment of $60 billion, interlinking of rivers at a budget of ports through Sagarmala at an outlay of Rs4 lakh crore. At a different scale, just one project - the 29.2km coastal road planned in one city, Mumbai - will cost Rs10, 000 crore.
   All these I itiativez will impact the lives and livelihoods of millions, and will compete for fi ite and scarce public resources. But are any of them being screened against the biggest existential threat humanity has ever faced-climate change? Unfortunately, the answer is NO.
  Putting a climate change lens on policy making offers a huge opportunity to make smart decisions about Indian's future. But this cannot wait. Climate change has the potential to swallow up all other issues of development.
  Given the credibility of this threat, it is both a moral and strategic imperative to bring climate change to the centre of the planning paradigm.

Pope Francis speaks on Climate Change

Source: The New York Times and Economic Times

Pope Francis forcefully urges action to combat climate change, criticizing the sale of "carbon credits".

Confronting the climate crisis will require a deeper, spiritual transformation of society, replacing consumption with sacrifice, greed with generosity, wastefulness with a spirit of sharing."

The central idea in all these programs-from Emission Trading System in Europe to carbon tax adopted in the Canadian province of British Columbia-is to put a price on Carbon,so that all businesses and consumers are charged for the environmental consequences of their actions.

Pope Francis agrees that "the economic resources and social costs of using up shared environmental resources" must be fully borne by those who incur them".

Pope Francis endorses the principle of "polluter pays".

For countries that rely on nuclear power,like France ,or burn very little coal,reducing green house gas emissions is enormously costly.By contrast,China can achieve reductions at a small fraction of cost.

    PM of India, Narendra Modi wants to assert green credentials of India ahead of key global summit on climate change in Paris later this year.The French will be lending strong support.

Modi will co-launch a book on the urgent need for protecting the environment with French President Francois Holland's to make the point.

The aim of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, in which 196 countries are participating, is to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, in order to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius.

Modi govt. is emphasizing India's commitment to the cause by initiatives on solar and wind power, environment friendly life style choices. It also pointed out that developed nations cannot escape their responsibility.