The Indian government does not believe that the U.N. climate agreement negotiated in Durban, South Africa, last year necessarily binds the country to mandatory emission reductions after 2020, a top-level Indian official said yesterday.

The so-called Durban Platform launches a new process for countries to negotiate a future climate regime by 2020 that will be "applicable to all parties." The United States maintains that means all countries, including India and China, will be held to the same legal obligations to curb emissions as fully industrialized nations, even though they might take different types of targets.

But Nitin Desai, a member of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Council on Climate Change, said yesterday that Indian leadership is divided over the assumption that the Durban agreement mandates that any new legal instrument would apply equally to all major emitters.

"On that point, there are differing opinions. It's open," Desai said. "Let's see how it emerges."

But, speaking at the Aspen Institute as part of talks between U.S. and Indian leaders on energy and climate, Desai said he thinks business leaders in India are far ahead of the government. Investors and others looking at clean energy and low-carbon development, he said, are actually eager for the government to take legally binding emission targets within the boundaries of the country's development needs.

"The world game has changed dramatically," Desai said. "Today, what industry needs is clarity about what is going to be done. That is why I don't think obligations are such a big problem. They're very happy with the idea of the government taking clear targets."

'Track two' discussions begin

The so-called "track two" discussions between the United States and India kicked off yesterday among a group of about 30 industry leaders, environmental activists and policymakers from both countries in an opening attempt to develop a joint bilateral low-carbon strategy.

"Energy has become a central point of focus of trying to build a strategic dialogue between the U.S. and India," said John Podesta, a prominent Democrat and chairman of the Center for American Progress think tank.

He, like others, noted that countries need to step up on-the-ground work on everything from green buildings to clean energy research and development -- and recognize that the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is not going to singlehandedly bring about significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

"We're waiting for Godot if we wait for the UNFCCC process to figure out exactly where we're going to be and how we're going to get there," Podesta said.

Manish Bapna, interim president of the World Resources Institute think tank, said it was valuable for country experts to come learn about what each country is doing domestically, noting: "Both sides, I think, came to the dialogue with the impression that the other side wasn't doing nearly as much."

At the same time, no concrete proposals were brought forward, those involved said, and the goal of the talks remains unclear. Meanwhile, the countries continue to have key disagreements at different levels on important issues.

Finding solutions to 'short lived' emissions

On Thursday, the U.S. State Department will announce a global partnership to address so-called "short lived climate forcers" -- that is, pollutants like methane, black carbon and a subset of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) that remain in the atmosphere only a short time yet whose eradication could significantly reduce emissions.

Podesta yesterday called the coalition of six countries -- the United States, Sweden, Canada, Mexico, Bangladesh and Ghana -- "a significant announcement" and an important element in trying to deal with the short-term effect on climate change as well as health and pollution impacts.

But Desai -- whose country is trying to block the ozone treaty known as the Montreal Protocol from decreasing HFCs and also objects to including black carbon as a regulated pollutant under the UNFCCC -- downplayed the importance of the coalition.

He claimed that black carbon and methane stocks are "not increasing particularly rapidly" -- a point with which U.S. experts disagree -- and suggested the focus was a way to divert attention from the things industrialized countries must still do to avoid the impacts of climate change. "It does not get you off the hook on carbon," he said.

Desai also said India remains opposed to the European trading scheme under which airlines operating in Europe are charged for exceeding carbon emissions limits. The U.S. government is closely aligned with India on this issue -- but the majority of U.S. policy experts and environmentalists who met with Indian leaders yesterday are in favor of it.

Desai insisted the airline issue is a matter of extraterritoriality and had nothing to do with low-carbon development. "It's a different story," he said.