Speaking at the General Assembly of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (WTO) in Colombia early on Wednesday morning, Soni stressed on adopting better adaptation mechanisms in the tourism sector and said policy responses to climate change should ensure that they do not put a brake on the flow of tourists worldwide.

“The policy responses to climate change must be balanced and comprehensive or else developing countries like India will be adversely impacted by decisions that seek to limit the industry potential,” Soni said.

Soni’s statement comes in the wake of last month’s Davos Declaration, which had said the tourism sector should also aim to undertake commitments to cut their carbon emissions. India had objected to this, saying WTO was not the right forum to discuss climate change issues, which should be best left to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

Soni reiterated that stand in Colombia when she asked the General Assembly to guard against introducing non-tariff barriers in the guise of climate change objectives.

“Important issues such as carbon footprints, taxes on aviation fuel, energy efficiency methods, water conservation that are being widely discussed and debated in the context of climate change should not end up being another form of non-tariff barriers for tourism against the developing countries,” Soni said.

“India is acutely aware of the considerable challenge we face today from climate change. We like other developing countries, bear an inordinate share of the burden of climate change. In such circumstances, we must significantly shore up our abilities to cope with and adapt to climate change,” she said.

The minister said the world still had a long way to go to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

“To be able to do so, we need tourism; we need development, which is also the best form of adaptation,” she said.