New Delhi, Jan 11: Chairman of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, has called for a change in the country’s current path of development, saying it could not be sustained.

He laid stress on sensitising the public about sustained development.

"I personally believe that the path of development that we are on cannot be sustained because what we are doing is not a sustainable system at all. Therefore, unless the public is sensitised to the reality, which I hope we can do through spreading the message that comes out of this summit, we are likely to run into serious problems if not a series of crisis in the future," Pachauri told reporters ahead of the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS), scheduled to be held in February.

The DSDS will focus on “Sustainable Development and Climate Change”.

The DSDS is an annual event which has become the most important gathering of leaders drawn from various parts of the world concerned about global sustainable development.

According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ‘Sustainable development can reduce vulnerability to climate change, and climate change could impede nations’ abilities to achieve sustainable development pathways’.

The problem of climate change is a global problem requiring a collective solution, which has developed as a consequence of intensified unsustainable patterns of development since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

India, whose economy has grown annually by eight to nine per cent in recent years, contributes around four per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions as its consumption of fossil fuels gathers pace. (ANI)