Karzai told a sustainability conference in New Delhi that the effects of war, pollution and climate change had taken their toll on Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan has suffered 30 years of unrest and 30 years of massive destruction of the environment: our trees, rivers, soil and all that we depend on," he said.

"Trees, cattle and wildlife need peace as well," he told the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit.

Karzai said war had encouraged individual greed that led to deforestation for profit and decried the impact of the West.

"As money has come to Afghanistan and as the West has arrived, it has had an adverse effect," he said. "Consumerism is at its highest with serious consequences for the Afghani people.

"I remember Kabul as a teenager and as a boy, but it is no longer breathable in the air. It is polluted. It was the crispest weather in the world with plenty of rain and snow. Lately we have had neither snow nor rain."

Karzai said that, despite continuing violence and bloodshed, the country had made efforts to improve the environment by encouraging people to make Thursday a non-working day in a bid to clear traffic jams and by discouraging the use of plastic bags.

Last week Karzai accused NATO-led forces fighting the Islamic insurgency of illegally cutting down up to 4,000 trees in Ghazni, a troubled province in the southeast.

At the conference in New Delhi, which was organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), he called for international action to help Afghanistan weave environmental issues into its development.

"We as citizens of this world will not do better for ourselves or leave a better world for future generations if we continue with the craze for more comfort, more expensive living and more consumerism," he said.

"Kabul can live without gold but not without snow."

Karzai was due to hold talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh later Thursday.

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