India, China role essential for intl carbon agreement: Brown

LONDON: British premier Gordon Brown has said that an international agreement to reduce carbon emission would be one of his key priorities in 2009 for which India and China will have to be taken on board.
 
Barack Obama's election as the US President would also help in achieving the aim, Brown said.
 
However he said that getting India and China on board was critical to reach an international agreement on carbon emissions.
 
Brown is also studying 10 specific projects on alternative energy sources. He denied that the recession would see green issues shelved, adding: "Rather than pushing the environment into a lower order of priority, the environment is part of the solution."
 
Brown's promised use of public money not only to create short-term jobs, but also to build a low-carbon economy for the  future, will be seen as a modern reworking of Roosevelt's New Deal - a massive  programme of public works, such as dams and roads, to help America recover from the Great Depression.

Speaking on trade opportunities with the Asian countries, Brown said, "I don't buy the argument that the beneficiaries of the next age of globalisation are only the Asian countries." But, he added, "Britain could sell to emerging markets in India and China, despite slowing growth in Asia."
    
"These (British goods) are the products that the world will want to  buy. I don't see us muddling through a difficult set of economic events. I see us as equipping ourselves to meet the big challenges of the future," he said hoping that the world economy will double in the next 20 years regardless of the current downturn.
    
Turning to other international issues like the Israel air-strike on Gaza, the British Premier said, "I want a ceasefire; I don't think that this should continue at all. What I want is an immediate and urgent ceasefire, but we want it to be based on deliverables for the  future."
   
On a question about what difference did he (Brown) expects Barak Obama, the US President-elect, will make to the international dynamic once he enters office, Brown said "What people will see is an administration that is preparing a major fiscal boost, a major stimulus package both now and for the future."
   
"I think it may change people's minds over what is happening in other countries as a result, particularly in Britain," he added.