US wants India's help on climate change issue

WASHINGTON: 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.