IEA chief backs India on coal, says no exit without financial aid

Lending his weight to India's stand on coal as an energy source, International Energy Agency (IEA) chief Fatih Birol on Wednesday said it won't be fair to ask developing nations to stop using coal without giving international financial assistance to make up for the economic challenge from such a move.

Developing nations like India depend on coal for 60 per cent of their energy, and coal and associated sectors are major employment generators, he said at the Energy Horizons Leadership Dialogue organised by Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).

Endorsing the Indian stand of it not being responsible for global pollution, Birol said, "climate change issue we have today, (that is) concentration of carbon in the atmosphere is not an issue of today. It is an issue of almost last 100 years."

"And many countries, so-called advanced economies, came to this industrialised levels and income levels by using a lot of coal. These are the US, Europe, Japan," he said.

India has maintained