India, China doing a lot to tackle climate change: US

WASHINGTON: India and China are taking "a lot of action" to tackle the climate change but it is a challenge to make them agree to a binding international agreement in this regard, a top Obama Administration official has said.

These remarks of Todd Stern, the Special US Envoy on Climate Change, came yesterday during a special Congressional hearing on climate change, where some lawmakers alleged that the two countries were not willing to be part of the solution.

However, Stern, the Obama Administration's Czar on climate change appreciated the steps being initiated by the two countries and their endeavour to be part of the solution.

"The thing that is really important to understand is that countries like China and India are actually doing a lot. They are not in the world any more of saying we don't have to worry about this problem, there is nothing that we have to do. They are taking a lot of action," Stern said at the hearing convened by the House of Representatives' Committee on Foreign Affairs.

"My guess is as you go forward in the years to come, they (India and China) are only going to ramp that up in very significant ways. Where they are resisting - and it's a problem - and it's a real problem - but where they are resisting is in translating many of those actions that they're taking at the national level into an international agreement," he said.