US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged the Indian Government to take a greater role in reducing the effects of climate change.
Joining her on the trip is her special climate envoy Todd Stern, who is tasked with bridging substantial divisions between the US and India on how best to tackle climate change.
Before leaving for India, Ms Clinton said that she and Mr Stern ‘hope that we can, through dialogue, come up with some win-win approaches’.
The Washington administration is also looking towards a December summit in the Danish capital Copenhagen intended to secure a new international agreement on climate change to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
India, like China, has refused to commit to carbon emission cuts in the new treaty until developed nations, particularly the US, present sufficient targets of their own.
India has consistently said any pact should not hinder the economic growth of developing countries.
The subject was raised at a meeting Ms Clinton had in Mumbai with Indian business leaders, including Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, which deals in oil and gas exploration among other business.
Mr Ambani argued that India and the US need to establish ‘self-sustaining institutions’ to produce clean technology, rather than debating who has the right to pollute and how much.
‘The time is now, and my perception is, the Indian corporate (world) is ready to do more,’ he said.
Amrita Patel, head of the National Dairy Development Board, took the US and the West to task.
‘The West, having consumed most of the resources, has to drive it (the climate change fight),’ Ms Patel said, echoing official positions. ‘There is a moral responsibility that the US has.’
Ms Clinton said President Barack Obama's administration has begun to take action on climate change.
She said the US had ‘made mistakes’ in its own industrial advance.
She has also defended the right of emerging countries to improve their living standards.
But she added: ‘We also hope that a country like India, which is growing and mobilising so much development, will not make the same mistakes.’
