Climate change to be key issue during Obama's India visit

LIMA: Climate change is expected to be an important component of the India-US engagement during President Obama’s visit to India in January next year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama are expected to take forward the partnership in the area of clean energy, outlined in Washington in September this year.

The head of the US delegation to Lima climate talks Todd Stern ruled out a climate deal on the lines of the November deal with China. ”We don’t have the kind of process with India, like we had with China, but we have a substantial desire to work in a constructive and ramped up way with India on climate change and clean energy.”

New Delhi has announced a five-fold ramp up of its solar capacity by 2022, taking total capacity from 2,650MW to 100GW. It is also considering expansion, though of much lower order of magnitude in wind energy.

Sources indicated that other areas of partnership that were being considered were in the realm of technology, and there could be some headway towards setting up a global technology consortium. India has a keen interest in climate change and clean energy related technology, and was actively involved in the conceptualization of the Climate Technology Centre and Network—the technology mechanism under the UNFCCC. New Delhi is keen to access technology to help push forward its clean energy and other climate related plans.

India’s environment minister Prakash javadekar and other key officials are scheduled to have a meeting with Stern and the US team on Thursday as part of the current round of climate change negotiations in Lima. It is expected that US Secretary of State John Kerry, who will be in Lima and at the talks on Thursday, will be attending the meeting as well. No official confirmation was however available.