By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : India has proposed annual bilateral dialogues with the United States and the European Union to exchange notes on the issue of climate change, Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh has said.
The proposed dialogue with the Europeans and the Americans could be on the lines of the first India-China energy dialogue scheduled to take place in New Delhi Oct 21, he said at a press conference here Friday at the end of his US visit.
The meeting with China, Ramesh said, has nothing to do with Copenhagen negotiations. The Dec 7-18 talks in Copenhagen are aimed at sealing a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, whose obligations on emission cuts run out at the end of 2012.
“It has to do with the actions of both the governments in climate change. This is the first consultations. I hope we are able to make it an annual affair,” he said adding, “I would like to have similar dialogue not only with the Chinese but also with the Europeans and the Americans.”
Ramesh said he had proposed to them both last week “that we can have an annual climate change policy consultation where we discuss technical details, broad technical areas of implementation of national action plan on climate change,” he said.