Where greenhouse gases will be curbed -- for example, by aggressively building hydro dams or modernizing industry -- the curbs will be a by-product of India's national security concerns or economic development plans.

The UN's climate change convention is even better than that -- it's a money-maker for India and a lever with which to obtain western technology. As the Action Plan makes clear, there's only one condition under which India need spend a rupee to help curb global warming "--(if) these incremental costs are borne by developed countries and the needed technologies are transferred."

Apart from wanting to develop, and wanting transfers of western wealth, the Indian government has one other reason for putting global warming on the back burner -- although it agrees that climate change may one day pose a threat, the National Action Plan states boldly that man-made global warming may not exist, and that if it does exist, its existence may be of no account to India.

"No firm link between the changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established," the report states matter-of factly, before proceeding to list the areas in which the science is not settled.