India will join 16 other major economies here next week to discuss climate change and energy security, with US officials saying the key objective of the meeting is to align the priorities of various countries and work out a strategy to deal with the issues.
India’s chief representative at the September 27-28 meeting will be External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee who will make a statement next Thursday on “National Priorities on Greenhouse Gases and Energy Security”.
“India has been very clear about their priorities and so what we want to do is understand and respect the Indian national priorities and see where they align with some of the objectives the other countries are pursuing,” Jim Connaughton,
Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in reply to a query at a media briefing here.
The expectation for the meeting, called by US President George W Bush in May, is that each country will be bringing to the table their own sets of strategies for dealing with the issues of energy security and climate change and some of their development objectives, Connaughton said.
Under-Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky pointed out that the 17 countries being represented in the meeting make up for 80 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions and about 85 per cent of economic output.
“The meeting will really afford an opportunity to flesh through in detail the kinds of national approaches that are being taken, to look at what are the commonalities, what are the differences and to try to bride those in developing a post-2012 framework,” the official remarked.
“In this sense India, China and all the countries… can and will play a major role in this effort”.