India looks for new deal with US on climate change

With global negotiations on climate change making little headway and time running out,India is learnt to be seeking a bilateral arrangement with the United States...

With global negotiations on climate change making little headway and time running out,India is learnt to be seeking a bilateral arrangement with the United States on issues of financing and technology transfers that can serve as a model for an agreement between developed and developing countries ahead of the all-important Copenhagen summit in December.

India has been arguing that developing countries cannot be expected to undertake any mitigation efforts in the absence of adequate transfer of finance and enabling technology from developed countries. The reluctance of developed countries to meet these demands,especially on technology transfer,has been one of the major stumbling blocks in global negotiations on climate change.

But with Washington taking an active interest in looking for a breakthrough in the stalled climate-change talks,India is of the view that its possible for the two countries to reach some sort of bilateral arrangement under which the US can be persuaded to make some commitments on technology transfers. In fact,a joint statement issued after the visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finished her official engagements today,makes a mention of this.

Both sides also agreed to launch a process of bilateral scientific and technological collaboration to support the development,deployment and transfer of transformative and innovative technologies in areas of mutual interest including solar and other renewable energy,clean coal and energy efficiency,and other relevant areas, the joint statement said. Clinton also spoke about finding a creative solution to the stalemate.

Highly placed sources said such a bilateral arrangement would help in ending the current stalemate in negotiations to look for a post-Kyoto framework on climate change. It assumes special significance also because China has been making efforts to reach a similar deal with Washington for quite some time but has been unable to do so till now.

Indias Special Envoy on Climate Change Shyam Saran and his counterpart in the United States Todd Stern will hold talks tomorrow in a bid to evolve such an arrangement,sources said. Stern,part of the official team accompanying Clinton,is staying back after Clintons departure tomorrow for these talks.

Climate change is said to have figured prominently in discussions Clinton had with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during which New Delhi is learnt to have brought up the issue of non-tariff barriers linked to greenhouse gas emissions that a key US legislation seeks to introduce in the US trade law.

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The US House of Representatives recently passed a climate Bill,one provision of which seeks to impose tariffs on products from countries that do not undertake emission-cuts targets,a move that goes against WTO rules and could harm interests of countries like India.

Sources said the US team allayed Indian concerns on this count saying that even President Barack Obama had spoken against sending out any protectionist signals. Besides,the Bill is still to be passed by the US Senate.