The Hindu Business Line : Climate change: US woos India, China with soft talk

WASHINGTON: 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, Ms Condoleezza Rice said the President Mr 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," Ms 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 such as 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," Ms Rice told the conservative think t ank.

"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 an d Indians brought into a regime".

Ms 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

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