Clinton hopes to reach agreement with India on global warming
NEW DELHI - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting India, hopes to find common ground with New Delhi on tackling global warming, an issue that divides industrialized countries and emerging powers.
After Saturday's terror-centric Bombay day, Clinton arrived in the Indian capital on Sunday, where she is due to visit a hotel awarded by the United States for its environmentally friendly and energy efficient architecture and operation.
The head of US diplomacy is accompanied by her special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern.
Washington intends to reach an agreement at the UN conference on global warming in December in Copenhagen, but India has so far refused to commit to quantified reductions in carbon emissions.
The G8 pledged ten days ago to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050 and those of industrialized countries by 80% from 1990 or "a year later", but it does not 'made no intermediate commitments as demanded by emerging countries. They recognized, like the G8, the need to limit global warming to 2 ° C.
India, the third largest polluter on the planet, fears that the fight against global warming is hindering its growth and throws on industrialized countries the "historical responsibility" for climate change.
"Since the West has consumed most of the resources, it must lead the fight against climate change. It is the moral responsibility of the United States," insisted industrialist Amrita Patel, during a meeting in Bombay with Mrs. Clinton.
She reminded him that President Barack Obama had started to act, unlike George W. Bush, and admitted that the United States had "made mistakes".
"We hope that a developing country like India does not make the same mistakes," Clinton warned.
Mukesh Ambani, head of Indian oil refining and petrochemical giant Reliance Industries, told him that "the corporate world in India seemed ready to do more" for the environment.
According to Evan Feigenbaum, former head of the State Department and specialist in Asia, India and the United States could agree to cooperate on renewable energy sources.
Ms. Clinton is staying in India until Tuesday.
It wants to strengthen the partnership with the tenth largest economic power in the world, which has become a major player on issues of nuclear proliferation, climate change or trade liberalization, especially after Indo-American frictions in 2008 over the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
We could also know Monday the two sites chosen by India for American nuclear power plants. The two countries signed a cooperation agreement in civilian nuclear power in October, consecrating their historic rapprochement after the tensions of the Cold War and during the Indian atomic tests of 1974 and 1998.
burs-nr / ob
(© AFP / 19 July 2009 12h00)
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