Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came to the support of beleaguered Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and said "India has full confidence in the IPCC process and leadership and will support it in every way". This comes in the wake of Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh's declaration that the government had set up two scientific bodies to research and monitor climate-related issues.

IPCC has been in the eye of the storm following allegations of creating a climate scare on the basis of unverified reports.

While spekaing at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit here today, Singh also said the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) had to be the center piece of global co-operation on climate issues. “We support the Copenhagen Accord and will take it forward. The Accord is a complement and not a substitute to the core international agreements,” he said.

The prime minister pointed out that a successful international agreement would require consensus on two crucial issues: the science of climate change and the ethical principle of common but differentiated responsibility. Though some aspects of the science in IPCC had faced criticism, he said India would continue to support the body.

Talking about Indian Network for Comprehensive Climate Change Assessment (INCCCA), a body set up under the  National Action Plan on Climate Change, Singh said, “this is a network of over 120 research institutes which will bring out regular reports on impacts of climate change. The first assessment will be released in November this year.

He said that since the industrialised nations played a historic role in accumulation of greenhouse gases, they needed to take bolder initiatives to contain future emissions.

“We recognise that we have to follow a different model of growth to that followed by industrialised countries,” he said adding that in a poor country like India, climate action that delayed or made difficult the task of poverty eradication would be difficult to implement.

The planning commission of India has recently set up an expert group to prepare a strategy on a low carbon economy in India. The group will work out an approach that takes on board concerns of all stakeholders in time before the 12th five-year plan from April 2012.