New Delhi, Nov. 15 -- India should get the energy it needs in the most convenient way that it can and must only worry about decarbonisation when "it gets rich enough", physicist Steven Koonin said at the 24th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on Saturday. "The energy needs [of the developing world] are immediate, whereas the climate threat is distant, vague and uncertain," said Koonin, the Edward Teller Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. India's first priority should be development, which would make it more resilient, Koonin said. The second priority, for all countries, should be technologies that cut emissions without costing more than coal or natural gas. Cutting emissions too quickly was "very disruptive and very expensive", he said, citing Germany, which shut down its nuclear reactors and gave up coal in favour of imported gas. In a 35-minute conversation with NDTV consulting editor Gargi Rawat, Koonin said the world was moving towards decarbonisation - the process of slashing the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - even as developing countries like India needed "more and more energy" to meet their growth targets. For three decades, the global energy debate has focussed on decarbonisation and forgotten "two other important, essential qualities of energy", Koonin said. "One is that it be reliable, and that it be affordable. For too long we have given too much emphasis to that decarbonisation, in the frankly misguided perception that there's a climate catastrophe ahead of us."P11...