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One of India's main environmentalist groups has criticized the prime minister for agreeing to make “significant reductions” to greenhouse gas emissions after the Kyoto conference.

The prime minister, I. K. Gujral, signed a declaration to that effect along with other Commonwealth leaders at summit meeting in Edinburgh at the end of October.

But Anil Agarwal, director of the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi, says Gujral should not have signed. Developing country participation is one of the US conditions to a greenhouse gas reduction treaty. Agarwal says that agreeing to the condition without asking for anything in return has left India and other developing countries with nothing to bargain with at Kyoto.

“The Indian prime minister may have jeopardized the position of the South even before the conference got under way,” says Agarwal. “Gujral's endorsement also puts in jeopardy any demand to fix emissions on a per capita basis, rather than a per country basis.”