NEW DELHI – Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Thursday that the world's poor nations will not sacrifice their development in negotiations for a new climate change deal.
The issue of how to share the burden of fighting global warming has divided the developing and industrialized worlds as they prepare to negotiate a replacement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol at a December summit in Copenhagen.
"Developing countries cannot and will not compromise on development," Singh told an international conference on technology and climate change.
However, even poorer countries need to "do our bit to keep our emissions footprint within levels that are sustainable and equitable," he said.
Developing countries argue that the industrial world produced most of the heat-trapping greenhouse gases and should bear the costs of fixing the problem. Wealthy nations say all countries — including growing polluters India and China — have to agree to broad cuts in emissions.
India and China agreed Wednesday to stand together on climate change issues at the Copenhagen meeting. The two nations agreed to work on slowing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, but resisted making those limits binding and subject to international monitoring.
Developing countries want financial aid for their climate change efforts, and Singh said wealthy nations have an obligation to ensure they get access to new, clean technology that will cut emissions and increase energy efficiency.
"We need technology solutions that are appropriate, affordable and effective," he said.
U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said any agreement at Copenhagen would need to include ambitious emissions cuts for industrialized countries, limit the growth of emissions from developing nations and give significant financial support to help poor nations comply with the targets.
"We have very little time remaining," he said.
Scientists say warming weather will lead to widespread drought, floods, higher sea levels and worsening storms.
Even a 3.6-degree-Fahrenheit (2-degree-Celsius) temperature rise could subject up to 2 billion people to water shortages by 2050, according to a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N. network of 2,000 scientists.
Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed warned Thursday that developing nations would bear the brunt of environmental catastrophes caused by global warming and insisted that a new deal was essential.
"On the issue of climate change, there is no room for compromise, no deals, no half measures. Radical change is what's required," Nasheed told the conference.
Nasheed has become a leading voice on the issue of global warming, with his low-lying Indian Ocean island nation in danger of being swamped by rising sea levels.

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WASHINGTON – The Obama administration said Thursday it is designating more than 200,000 square miles in Alaska and off its coast as "critical habitat" for polar bears, an action that could add restrictions to future offshore drilling for oil and gas.
Federal law prohibits agencies from taking actions that may adversely affect critical habitat and interfere with polar bear recovery.
Assistant Interior Secretary Tom Strickland called the habitat designation a step in the right direction to help polar bears stave off extinction, while recognizing that the greatest threat to the bear is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate change.
"As we move forward with a comprehensive energy and climate strategy, we will continue to work to protect the polar bear and its fragile environment," Strickland said at a news conference.
The total area proposed for critical habitat designation would cover about 200,541 square miles — about half in the rugged Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast. About 93 percent of the area proposed for the polar bear is sea ice, with the remaining 7 percent made up of barrier islands or land-based dens of snow and ice.
Designation as critical habitat would not, in itself, bar oil or gas development, but would make consideration of the effect on polar bears and their habitat an explicit part of any government-approved activity.
Thursday's announcement starts a 60-day public comment period, with a final rule expected next year. Interior faces a June 30 deadline for critical habitat designation under terms of a settlement agreement between the government and three environmental groups.
The Bush administration last year declared polar bears "threatened," or likely to become endangered. The May 2008 order by then-Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne cited the bear's need for sea ice, the dramatic loss of such ice in recent decades and computer models that suggest sea ice is likely to recede further in the future.
Environmental groups hailed the habitat announcement, but noted that it came in the same week that the Interior Department approved a plan by a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell to drill exploratory wells on two leases in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska's north coast. The proposed drilling sites are within the area proposed for critical habitat designation.
"If polar bears are to survive in a rapidly melting Arctic, we need to protect their critical habitat, not turn it into a polluted industrial zone," said Brendan Cummings, a lawyer with the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a lawsuit in the polar bear case.
Cummings called the Interior Department "schizophrenic" — on the one hand declaring its intent to protect polar bear habitat in the Arctic, yet at the same time "sacrificing that habitat to feed our unsustainable addiction to oil."
The announcement comes one day after the state of Alaska filed a new complaint in its effort to overturn the listing of the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Former Gov. Sarah Palin filed suit last year, saying that Interior did not respond to the state's concerns in a timely manner before listing the polar bears as threatened. State officials say the listing could cripple offshore oil and gas development in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, which provide prime habitat for the polar bears.
Gov. Sean Parnell, who succeeded Palin upon her resignation last summer, said the Endangered Species Act was being used as a way to shut down resource development along Alaska's northern coast. Parnell said he does not intend to let that happen.
Environmental groups monitoring the Arctic have long complained that federal regulators routinely grant permits for petroleum exploration without adequately considering consequences for whales, polar bears, walrus and other marine mammals. They say boats, drilling platforms and aircraft will add to bears' stress by causing them to flee and expend more energy.
Conservation groups also say oil companies have not demonstrated they can clean up an oil spill in broken ice. Cleanup off Alaska's coast could be slowed by extreme cold, moving ice, high wind and low visibility.
Andrew Wetzler of the Natural Resources Defense Council said designation of critical habitat is a powerful tool to protect threatened species, but said more must be done to save the polar bear from extinction.
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PORTLAND, Maine – Two police officers were legally justified when they fatally shot a 26-year-old Sudanese immigrant in an incident that sparked anger and unrest in the Sudanese community in Maine's largest city, the state's top prosecutor ruled Friday.
Portland Officers Benjamin Roper and Joshua Wiseman acted in self-defense when they shot David Okot after he pulled a handgun from the waistband of his pants April 25, Attorney General Janet Mills said.
Police were responding that night to a report of an intoxicated man showing off a weapon when officers encountered Okot, who initially tried to flee into an apartment building.
Locked out of the building, Okot responded to the officers' orders with expletives and was shot after he pulled a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol and pointed it at Wiseman, Mills said. Toxicology tests later determined Okot had a blood-alcohol content of 0.26 percent and cocaine in his bloodstream, Mills said.
Okot's family couldn't be reached immediately for comment Friday; a listed telephone number could not be found for his father.
The shooting caused hard feelings within Portland's Sudanese community and led to a policy of officers being sent in pairs to certain neighborhoods.
Police Chief James Craig said the shooting had "heartbreaking consequences" for Okot and his family, but that Mills' report confirmed his initial impression that his officers' actions were justified.