China, India play key roles in climate change battle: S&P

New York: One challenge that makes climate stabilisation more daunting than it would be otherwise is that projections for global emission increases could understate the growth coming from China and India, according to a report, Global Carbon Emissions And The ''Chindia'' Factor, published today by Standard & Poor''s Ratings Services titled

These transitional economies are feeling strong pressures to expand energy supply as quickly as possible, often by using carbon-intensive resources and technologies.

While China and India have proposed a number of initiatives and programmes to combat climate change, coal-fired power generation still remains the cheapest, but dirtiest, source of energy for these countries--and the most widely used.

"The extent to which these rapidly developing nations will be able to shift away from coal-fired generation toward low-carbon energy investments is crucial to reducing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide," said Standard &Poor''s credit analyst Aneesh Prabhu.

Ultimately, the baseline emissions path in the world economy has to be altered if the problem of global climate change is to be addressed.