US to take India`s help on climate change issue

Lalit K Jha

Washington, May 21 (PTI) The Obama Administration is
all set to embark on a dialogue with India on addressing
climate change and related issues, similar to a mechanism it
currently has with China, US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton said on Thursday.

"We are about to embark, we hope, in the same vein (as
that of Chinese), with the Indians, talking to them as well,"
Clinton told a Congressional panel at a hearing Wednesday.
However, she did not give any details of such a talk with
India.

Considering the issue as a major policy priority, the
Obama Administration has appointed a special envoy on it and
held a special ministerial level meeting of emerging
economies, including India. Clinton said she has been in
special talks with China on this issue

"In my very first meetings with the Chinese, I raised
the importance of the climate-change issue, encouraged them to
become partners with us, recognised that they were at a
different starting point, so there might be different
modalities that they would pursue," she said. This is a
constant issue in US-China bilateral relationship, she added.

"I think the Chinese are taking this very seriously.
We see a lot of commitment to new technologies, deployment of
at least cleaner energy, and understanding that there are
economic opportunities here for the Chinese. We are about to
embark, we hope, in the same vein, with the Indians, talking
to them as well," Clinton said in response to a question on
this issue from Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

Clinton said the US needs to step up and produce a
robust, effective approach to climate change in addition to
all of the pieces that the administration is now adopting. "We
need to really push this at Copenhagen and beyond. Because
remember, Copenhagen is not the end," she said.

Earlier in his opening remarks, Senator John Kerry,
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, emphasised
that the issue of climate change needs to be a important
foreign policy priority of the US.

"We need to reach new understandings with China and
India and the developing world to avert catastrophic climate
change and put low carbon technologies into the hands of
billions of people," he said. PTI