NEW DELHI, India - Advanced developing countries like India can take the lead in addressing climate change, Nobel laureate, Al Gore said on Saturday.

On a two-day visit, the man who captured a global audience with his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” Gore met the PM and trained a hundred people using his famous climate change presentation.

Gore also launched the Indian chapter of his NGO 'Climate Project' along with The Energy Research Institute and JSW Foundation. The NGO trains people using his presentation to spread the climate change gospel further.

Hinting that his message on climate change may not echo with the Indian
government's, he said, "The correct response to the climate crisis is not a comparison between some level of pollution achieved by other countries a long time ago with dirty technology but what can be achieved in the 21st century with efficient technologies."

His hint at divergence from the Indian standpoint that countries like
the US, which have been polluting the planet since the industrial revolution and continue to do at levels 20 times higher than India, should act first and push India for action later, were explicit when he said, "India is highly vulnerable to the climate change crisis and in league with other nations it can help be part of the solution."

He pre-empted being wrong footed on this. "People in developing nations
have a right to aspire to a higher standard of living... the right to set up whatever goals they think are appropriate. In any case, the correct comparison is between the future we want and the future we will have unless we take the right path," he added.

About the author:
Darryl D'Monte is the Chairperson, Forum of Environmental Journalists of India (FEJI) and International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ)