Obama keen on Indo-US renewable energy partnership Lalit K Jha

Washington, Apr 29 (PTI) US President Barack Obama is
keen to build an Indo-US renewable energy partnership, taking
forward his recent discussions with Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh on climate change and energy security, a senior Indian
official said here Wednesday.

This message was conveyed by Obama to Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh's Special Envoy on Climate Change
Shyam Saran during an official reception.

Obama reminded Saran the conversation he had in this
regard with Singh in London early this month and said he was
"encouraged and pleased" with the exchange of views.

India and the US should seek to build renewable energy
partnership, Obama told Saran during the brief exchange they
had at the reception hosted by the President at White House
for the participants of the 17-nation Major Economies Forum on
Energy and Climate.

"In the very brief exchange that I had with him, he
(Obama) referred to his meeting with the Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh in London at the time of the G-20 Summit and
said how encouraged and pleased he was with the exchange of
views he had with the Prime Minister on that occasion, which
included an exchange of views on issue of climate change and
energy security," Saran told a group of Indian journalists.

"In that context he (Obama) said that we are very much
looking forward to what had been agreed upon during that
meeting that India and United States should seek to build up a
renewable energy partnership," said Saran, who led the Indian
delegation at the two-day conference on energy and climate.

According to Saran, Obama said his administration is
"really looking forward" to developing a renewable energy
partnership with India. "What are the ways we can collaborate
together and that he attaches a great deal of importance to
this initiative," Saran said.

The Obama Administration has already announced a USD
150 billion ten-year renewable energy initiative. In fact, it
was a solar energy company -- by the name of Namaste - in
Denver Colorado, where Obama and Vice President Joe Biden
together announced the administration's renewable energy
initiative in February this year.

Saran said India and the US are already doing quite a
few things in this sector.

"It is not that as if we are starting things from
scratch. As you know, we have an energy dialogue at the level
of the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and the
Energy Secretary in the US and within that for the last few
years we have been working on things like clean coal, new
technologies like hydrogen fuel economy.

"We have been talking about methane to market
initiative. So there are things that we are already doing
between the United States and India," Saran said. PTI LKJ
PMR
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