'India can lead global effort to tackle climate change'

India has the potential to emerge as a global leader towards clean energy and tackling climate change, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said here Thursday.

He said India's need for growth could be reconciled with a sustainable model of development.

Speaking at the inaugural session of 15th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS), Fabius said "no doubt that India will play a leading role in this effort (dealing with climate change)" under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Indeed India is a major economy and, therefore, a major emitter and a key player in growth standards and sustainable development goals negotiator. At the same time, we understand India's constraints."

As the chairperson of the COP21 - the UN Climate Change Conference to be held in Paris later this year - Fabius shared his vision and expectations from Paris 2015 at the three-day summit organised by The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) here.

As the chair, he assured to have a "transparent, impartial, and ambitious" leadership and spare no effort in carving out a "universal and meaningful" agreement among 195 countries that would seek to limit global carbon emission.

Over the past 14 years, the DSDS has been serving as an annual platform to discuss issues of sustainability and relevant policy interventions to ensure a sustainable future.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon will participate via video conference in the summit with the theme "Sustainable Development Goals and Dealing with Climate Change".

Former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, TERI director general and chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change R.K. Pachuri are also attending the event, besides others.