June 30 (Bloomberg) -- India said it will reject any new treaty to limit global warming that makes the country reduce greenhouse-gas emissions because that will undermine its energy consumption, transportation and food security.

Cutting back on climate-warming gases is a measure that instead must be taken by industrialized countries, and India is mobilizing developing nations to push that case, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told the media today in New Delhi.

“India will not accept any emission-reduction target -- period,” Ramesh said. “This is a non-negotiable stand.”

India, which has more than 800 million people living on less than $2 a day, is talking with Brazil, China and South Africa on taking a common stand in international negotiations that richer countries like the U.S. and Britain must reduce their emissions 45 percent by the year 2020 from 1990 levels.

That level of reduction worldwide may be enough to ensure the global average temperature rises no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, according to a United Nations climate agency, which suggested a 25 percent-to-40 percent cut over the same three-decade period.

The 27-nation European Union, promising a 20-percent reduction, Japan, pledging an 8 percent cut, and the U.S., committed to return to 1990 levels by 2020, all fall below the UN target for gases such as carbon dioxide.

“We are not re-negotiating the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change,” Ramesh said, referring to the treaty that entered into force in 1994 and laid the groundwork for emissions cuts by richer nations. “There is no way India is going to accept any emission reduction target, period, between now and the Copenhagen meeting and thereafter.”

Per-Capita Offer

More than 190 nations are negotiating a global climate treaty to reduce gas emissions and replace the expiring 1997 Kyoto Protocol limits. Countries plan to wrap up negotiations and sign the new treaty in Copenhagen by late December.

Ramesh reiterated India’s previous offer to contain CO2 emissions per capita below those of developed nations.

India, the second-most populous nation, only emits 4.6 percent of the global carbon-dioxide emissions, while the U.S. produces 20.9 percent, he said. Asia’s third-biggest economy in June unveiled a plan to form eight commissions to improve energy efficiency and mitigate the impact of climate change.

The legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives to impose trade penalties on nations that do not accept limits on global warming pollution is a concern for India, Ramesh said.

“We reject the use of climate as a non-tariff barrier,” the minister said. “We comprehensively and categorically reject any attempt to introduce climate change” as part of World Trade Organization talks.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 30, 2009 09:34 EDT