LIMA: A day before meeting Indian environment minister Prakash Javadekar for yet another round of bilateral meeting here on sideline of the climate conference, the US special envoy for climate change Todd Stern on Wednesday ruled out the possibility of a wide-ranging deal to cut greenhouse gas emission with India on the line of the recent US-China deal.
Responding to a specific question on the possibility of such deal during the US president Barack Obama's visit to New Delhi in January next year, Stern said, "We don't have that kind of process going on with India".
Stern, who had met Javadekar on Sunday, however said India was an important player and he expected it to be a constructive one in the ongoing climate talks.
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He also mentioned that the US had a lot of bilateral works with India on clean energy and will continue doing so.
Under the US-China bilateral deal that was signed in Beijing last month, the US will reduce emissions by 26-28% below the 2005 levels by 2025 while China intends to achieve the peaking of carbon emissions around 2030. Under the deal, Beijing also intends to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20% by 2030.
Going into the background of the US-China deal, Stern said he was with Secretary of State John Kerry when he visited China last February. The idea for a deal was conceived of in his office and it was discussed with China's top leadership during the visit. The official deal was announced nine months later, he said, adding it was not something that was decided in two weeks.
Stern, who will meet Javadekar for another round of bilateral on Thursday said, "We don't have that kind of process with India but we have a substantial desire to work in a constructive and ramped up way with India on climate change and clean energy."
He said that Kerry would arrive in Lima on Thursday for a few hours since he was visiting the region and he would make some remarks on the US commitments on climate.
It is expected that India and US during Obama visit would announce some agreement in the field of clean energy financing. It would take froward the cooperation which both the countries had agreed upon during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US in September.
The US had then promised to help India build nuclear power plants through civil nuclear cooperation agreement, increase support for renewable energy through sharing cost-effective technology and boost capacity for adapting to climate change.
The India-US joint statement had then enlisted many such measures. It included providing for up to $1 billion in helping India's transition to a low-carbon and climate-resilient energy economy, launching a new US-India 'Partnership for Climate Resilience' to advance capacity for climate adaptation planning and a new programme of work on air quality aimed at delivering benefits for climate change and human health.
Both the countries had also agreed for a new US-India 'Climate Fellowship Program' to build long-term capacity to address climate change-related issues in both countries and to "explore opportunities for collaboration on national parks and wildlife conservation".
