AFP - India on Wednesday tightened air quality rules and said it will enforce a single standard for industrial and residential pollution.

The Revised National Ambient Air Quality Standards rule would lead to the use of "clean fuel" to lower emissions, Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh said.

The announcement came less than a month before the December 7-18 climate change summit in Copenhagen. India, among the world's biggest polluters, has come under international pressure to curb its greenhouse gas emissions.

"We have removed the distinction between industrial and residential areas. This is very important. Now standards will be uniform irrespective of whether it is classified as industrial or residential area," Ramesh told reporters.

"The consequences of the new standards will be clean fuel and this will have a major implication on greenhouse gas emissions as well," he said.

Previous rules allowed lower air quality in industrial areas compared to residential areas, Ramesh said.

"The new guidelines have been prepared after considering those of the European Union," the minister added.

India and China, another major global polluter, last month signed a five-year agreement to cooperate on climate change leading up to the summit.

They have so far taken a united stand on rejecting binding emissions cuts, arguing that carbon caps would hinder their quest for economic development and poverty alleviation.

Some 190 countries will meet in the Danish capital to try to conclude a new United Nations-backed climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.