Gurgaon, July 19 (IANS) India Sunday said it wants to engage the world community pro-actively to combat climate change and will have “concrete partnerships” with the US in the energy sector.
“I want to say that both sides have agreed on the need of partnerships, concrete partnerships, on projects in various fields like energy efficiency, solar energy, biomass, energy-efficient buildings of the type that you are seeing here today,” Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said here.

He was speaking after Secretary of State Hillary addressed a conference on climate change at the ITC Green Building in Gurgaon, a booming business hub adjoining Delhi.

Clinton, who began her two-day visit to the national capital after visiting Mumbai, was accompanied by US special envoy on climate change Todd Stern, US ambassador-designate to India Tim Roemer and senior US embassy officials.

The conference was also attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s special envoy on climate change Shyam Saran.

“We have made a good beginning. We have taken a small step today. We will continue our engagements in multilateral forums. But we will also have bilateral engagements,” Ramesh said.

“We discussed our common concerns and, most importantly, we will launch a number of partnerships between the US and India in various fields. I have made some specific proposals to madam the secretary of state.

“India seeks to engage the world community pro-actively in the climate change area,” he said in a statement issued after the nearly one-hour long meet.

The minister said there are numerous opportunities for joint research, development, demonstration and dissemination projects in the areas of solar energy, biomass, clean coal, high voltage power transmission, ’smart grids’ and wastewater utilisation.

Ramesh also proposed that the two country could jointly “explore the feasibility of establishing an Indo-US Foundation for Climate Change Technology with initial kick-start contributions from respective governments”.

“This will catalyse private investment into the corpus as well. The focus on this foundation should be on transformative, discontinuity technologies that will enable leap-frogging,” he added.

India is planning to establish an independent, professional, science-based national environmental protection authority, the minister said.

“We are planning to set up a National Green Tribunal as some sort of an environmental court. I am convinced that we have much to learn from your long experience in this area,” he said, nodding to Clinton.

“We can also collaborate in the ongoing renewal of our vast forestry and biodiversity science and management establishment,” he added.

Also, he said, the two countries could work on building institutional capacity for research on climate change and its impacts.