This time over agreeing to ink a bilateral agreement with the US on Low Carbon Growth Strategy — a strict no-go area for India. The external affairs ministry and the environment ministry have opposed the move that could undercut India's stance on climate change.

India has for long negotiated at the UN climate convention against low carbon growth pathways for developing countries, as accepting one automatically leads to a binding limit on the country's greenhouse gas emissions consequently imposing an internationally agreed roadmap for India to reduce dependence on fossil fuels without a parallel commitment for finance and technology from the developed world.

Adhering to the redline, India has so far avoided even bilateral agreements with other countries that could drive policy on emission reduction.

The Planning Commission had earlier created a storm while finalizing the climate change chapter in the 12th five year plan where it had gone against the advice of its own steering committee and the environment ministry to push binding emission reduction targets on the country and enhance its international commitments unilaterally without adequate international finance and technology.

The PM's intervention ensured that the commission relented and amended the chapter to align it with India's existing climate change policy.

This time, sources in the government said, Ahluwalia has agreed to an MoU under the India-US Energy dialogue to sign a deal between USAID — US' aid assistance arm — on the principles of a low carbon growth. This has got both the ministry of external affairs and the environment ministry opposing the move strongly.

Sources said the external affairs ministry has pointed out that the policy-making on this front is dictated by domestic decisions and the real concerns where US could be of help is on transfer and use of clean technologies — an element that is completely missing from the proposed bilateral deal.

The environment ministry has pointed out that the proposed agreement with the US, which Ahluwalia has given an in-principle nod to, goes beyond the sphere of collaboration drawn in the in the agreement signed between the two countries when the PM visited the US last.

The nodal ministry for climate change has warned that USAID is not the right agency to be dealing with on policy sketching exercise when it comes to climate change and emission reduction.

It said the government policy has been to focus on technology and science development through the bilateral route and leave the stance on reducing emissions to the multilateral forum — the UN negotiations. India already has an MoU with the USAID on forestry and sustainable development which too the government believes has not yielded expected results.