US woos India, China on climate change with soft talk

by Sridhar Krishnaswami

Washington, June 20 (PTI) - In a significant move to bring
on board India and China over tackling climate change, the US
has said that it was not pressing for "one-size-fits-all"
framework on cutting emissions as it realised that the two
countries will not "stop growing" to check greenhouse gases.

Defending the US' opposition to the Kyoto protocol,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said President George W.
Bush will press the case with India and China over the new
framework at the G8 summit this month.

"...One of the reasons that the United States rejected
the Kyoto Treaty was that I don't care what you do in terms of
US and European emissions, if China and India are not part of
it you're not going to make any progress," Rice said at a
function of The Heritage Foundation.

Kyoto framework was "not going to work", the top
official said, adding the US was now working toward a regime
in which countries like China and India could be included.

"But it's, frankly, not going to be a one-size-fits-all
kind of approach, because if you tell China or India that they
have to stop growing in order to deal with greenhouse gas
emissions, they're not going to do it," Rice told the
conservative think tank.

"If you tell them that we can together to harness
technologies to deal with coal fires, to deal with the fact
that the Chinese are building coal plants at a very, very
rapid pace, clean coal technology and others, then you are
going to get the Chinese and Indians brought into a regime".

Rice's conciliatory tone is significant as the US has
been insisting that it will agree to emission control targets
only if India and China do the same, seen by New Delhi and
Beijing as an unfair move that will hurt their growth. PTI