WH: Obama meeting with Modi should yield ‘deliverables’ on climate

Climate change and clean energy will be primary topics during President Obama’s meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi next week.

Senior White House officials said Friday that the administration expects major results on the issues to come out of the meeting.

{mosads}“What you’re going to see is a good, strong focus on defense and security issues, but then also on clean energy and climate change, and you will probably see the majority of the deliverables that come out of the conversations to be within that spectrum,” one official said Friday.

New efforts could be announced in energy, environment, sustainable growth and other areas between the two countries.

The administration official stressed that cooperation between India and the U.S. on climate is more about “engagement over the next six, 10, 18 months” and how the two nations will “move forward together in addressing and achieving those goal and objectives.”

Speaking at the United Nations climate summit on Tuesday, Obama called on everyone, specifically emerging economies like India, to act on climate.

“Nobody gets a pass,” Obama said, vowing the U.S. would lead.

Days later, however, in an interview with the New York Times, India’s environment minister, Prakash Javadekar, said the nation’s priority is to improve its economy.

Prioritizing a growing economy and expanding fossil fuel production, Javadekar admitted, will increase pollution.

“What cuts?” Javadekar told the Times, waving away any notion that India would reduce carbon emissions. “That’s for more developed countries. The moral principle of historic responsibility cannot be washed away.”

When asked about the minister’s comments, Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy told reporters that she wasn’t “going to debate what public signals are being sent.”

During meetings in New York earlier this week, McCarthy said India and other nations were sending “positive signals.”

Administration officials said Friday that there will be a continued emphasis on India’s energy security, including improving access to electricity for about 400 million people.