Indian minister calls adopting US consumer lifestyle 'recipe for disaster'

India's outspoken environmental minister has attacked wealthy Indians' embrace of the American consumer lifestyle, calling the US model of development a "recipe for disaster."

"You can't blame the Americans. The US lifestyle has become the world lifestyle," Jairam Ramesh told Britain's Guardian newspaper in an interview published Wednesday.

"If we are going to replicate this model, it is a recipe for disaster for India, as well as for the rest of the world," he said, days before leaving for UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico.

He said there were many people in India who want the country to "grow now, pay later. They say, let's follow the Western model - or even the Chinese model."

Ramesh, a member of the ruling Congress party, has made a name for himself as a "green campaigner," halting major projects through his insistence that procedures to protect the environment be followed.

His willingness to stand in the way of road and infrastructure development has made him enemies in the cabinet and a troublesome figure for industrialists.

Earlier this month, he described gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles that run on state-subsidized diesel as "criminal."

AFP