A brochure formally released by Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar at the India pavilion at the Paris climate change conference on Monday says Indians have an intrinsically climate-friendly lifestyle as the country has 42 per cent vegetarian households, and individuals consume a tenth of the meat compared with the global average. People also practise yoga as part of culture.
The vegetarian households in the country do not eat fish, meat or eggs, the publication says, citing data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation. This stands in contrast to the global rise in meat consumption. Higher meat consumption, it is explained, leads to stress on land and water leading to more greenhouse gas emissions. The per capita meat consumption in India for 2011-13 was 3.3 kg, which is one tenth the global average, the brochure says.
Yoga, it says, “is not just about exercise, but to discover the sense of oneness with ourselves, the world and nature,” the publication says, pointing out that the U.N. had proclaimed June 21 as International Day of Yoga.
After it was released, a journalist asked the Minister how yoga had a link to climate change, but elicited no explanation.
Other aspects of the Indian “conception of life embodied in a coherent world view,” as the brochure describes it, includes need-based consumption, respect for food, preference for locally grown food and natural food preservation techniques, and solar passive traditional building construction using mud and chequered windows.
