The negotiator said the US delegation at a climate change conference in Bangkok earlier this month informed Indian officials that Ramesh had told the US that India would subject its domestic voluntary initiatives on climate change to international monitoring and verification.

Such a stance would be a departure from India's position that only internationally-funded climate change mitigation projects would be opened by India for scrutiny, according to the negotiator who requested not to be named.

The negotiator said the US officials told the Indian team twice that minister Ramesh had assured the US of such a policy shift -- once during multilateral discussions, and again during an India-US bilateral session.

“It was obviously a big surprise to us,” the negotiator told The Telegraph.

“During the multilateral discussions, we responded saying that each delegation should speak for itself and not on behalf of other (countries). At the bilateral, we just said that this is not our understanding,” the team member said.

However, when these discussions were conveyed to the minister, Ramesh sent the team a detailed email communique asserting that there was no change in India’s negotiating position on climate change.

The document reiterated that India would not accept any legally binding targets to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases and that India would not allow its domestic initiatives to international monitoring, reporting or verification. “As far as we know, there is no change yet in India's negotiating strategy. Our brief is exactly what it was earlier,” the negotiator said.

Minister Ramesh was not available for comments to The Telegraph today. Ramesh had earlier this year said that India would not “budge” from these “sacrosanct” principles that, he said, make up the cornerstone of India’s negotiating strategy as the world seeks to set new emission reduction targets for the period beyond 2012.

India wants the industrialised countries to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent from its 1990 levels by the year 2020. The global pact known as the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in 1997 had set binding targets on 37 industrialised countries and the European Union for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions until 2012.

In the ongoing negotiations to determine emissions beyond 2012, India has argued that the major responsibility of curbing emissions still lies with the industrialised countries, but has pledged that it will improve energy efficiency, expand renewable energy, and increase forest area as domestic actions.

Non-government groups have urged the Indian government to quantify its voluntary initiatives, and link them reciprocally to the 40 per cent reduction of emissions by the developed countries.

The European Union has also asked India to quantify its domestic action and allow international observations of these initiatives to determine whether the targets are indeed being met.