By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : India and the US have agreed to continue their high level dialogue on climate change in the run up to the Copenhagen conference to evolve a new global regime on the issue.
The agreement came as Prime Minister’s Manmohan Singh’s Special Envoy on climate change, Shyam Saran, Wednesday concluded the first high-level interaction with Obama administration on climate change and related matters.
India’s ambitious National Action Plan on Climate Change, covering both mitigation and adaptation, was also discussed. They also exchanged views on the Copenhagen meet and hoped a positive outcome would emerge.
Saran concluded his visit with meetings Wednesday with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Jim McDermott, Co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans and representatives of think tanks dealing with the issue.
In an address to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on “India’s Climate Change Initiatives: Strategies for a Greener Future” Tuesday Saran asked the US to take the lead in evolving a new “fair and equitable” global regime on climate change and said New Delhi was prepared to work with the US for that end.
Hoping that the Copenhagen meet “will deliver a fair and equitable, but also an ambitious outcome based on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the Bali Action Plan, he said: “India is prepared to work together with the US towards this objective.”