Climate pact an India priority, 2 leaders say

President Barack Obama meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday in the White House.
President Barack Obama meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday in the White House.

WASHINGTON -- India will work to join a climate change deal this year, President Barack Obama's administration said Tuesday, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the White House and the two leaders played up their efforts to cooperate on issues of global concern.

Stressing their "strong bonds," Obama said the world's two largest democracies had "joined forces" to carry out provisions in the climate agreement that was reached in Paris in December.

"We discussed how we can as quickly as possible bring the Paris agreement into place, how we can make sure that climate financing that's necessary for India to be able to embark on its bold vision for solar energy and clean energy that Prime Minister Modi has laid out can be accomplished," Obama said, alongside Modi after their meeting in the Oval Office.

Modi said the U.S. and India have been cooperating on issues of global concern, including nuclear security, climate change and terrorism. He referred to Obama as "my close friend" and said the two nations would continue working "shoulder to shoulder."

India, with some of the world's most polluted air and intentions to develop more industry, was a reluctant signer of the Paris agreement that involves almost 200 countries.

India is the world's third-largest carbon emitter among nations, after China and the U.S. The Paris agreement aims to keep the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius -- about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit -- compared with preindustrial times. The agreement enters into force once 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global emissions have joined it.

India accounts for 4.1 percent of global emissions. "If India joins, it will practically put us over the hump of 55 percent of global emissions required for ratification," said Andrew Light, a former State Department negotiator now at the World Resources Institute.

Air quality in New Delhi, India's capital, is dangerous, with levels of particulates that can cause respiratory diseases soaring, often above safe limits established by the World Health Organization. Car fumes, smoke-stack power plants and fires lit to clear land for crops contribute to the air pollution.

Securing India's ratification of the agreement this year would put enactment of the Paris deal ahead of schedule, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a briefing. Obama declined to take questions from reporters after their meeting.

In a joint statement, the U.S. reaffirmed its commitment to join the climate deal "as soon as possible this year," and India said it shared that objective. Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said there were regulatory and legal issues to be addressed. He told reporters that the government was "looking at ways and means" to take the agreement forward.

The U.S., India and dozens of other countries have already signed the deal, the first hurdle in a two-step process, but Modi has been coy about whether India would formally join this year. The U.S. is eager for countries to join quickly because the deal's carbon-cutting requirements kick in only after a critical mass of polluting nations join. China, Canada, Mexico and Australia have all said they intend to join this year.

Other joint announcements seemed to illustrate the challenges in securing concrete progress on climate change. Though the two countries said engineering and site development work was starting on six nuclear reactors that U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric Co. wants to build in India, there was no agreement about the big unresolved issue: cost and financing. Instead, the countries said only that they had agreed to finish the contractual arrangements by June 2017.

The U.S. and India also said they'd agreed to try to use a decades-old ozone-protection treaty to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, refrigerants that are potent greenhouse gases, through an amendment that would also provide funds to help poorer countries implement it. But officials said an actual deal to phase out the pollutants wouldn't come until the parties to the treaty meet in October in Rwanda.

The two nations agreed that they would link increased financial support for India from a multilateral fund with what Obama adviser Brian Deese called "an ambitious approach to phase out HFCs altogether."

Without an agreement, the use of hydrofluorocarbons is expected to soar as the growth of a middle class in India fuels an increase in the sale of air conditioning and refrigerators. Hydrofluorocarbons have a global-warming power thousands of times greater that carbon dioxide.

India has been pressing for a longer "grace period" before starting to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, as well as a longer phase-out period. But the United States has been urging action before the hydrofluorocarbons industry grows. "For India, it doesn't make sense to build an industry that is a generation behind. And then it doesn't make sense for us to pay to dismantle it," said David Doniger, director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Montreal Protocol, a global treaty adopted in 1987, is one part of a broad effort by Obama to persuade Modi to act to prevent an explosion of greenhouse gas emissions as India's economy speeds ahead.

The leaders backed the creation of two mechanisms to help stimulate the scores of billions of dollars of financing that will be needed.

One mechanism will be a joint $40 million program to provide high-risk capital for areas off the grid in India, where about 240 million people have no access to electricity. The second mechanism is a joint $20 million India Clean Energy Finance Initiative. This will help developers put together "serious bankable" renewable projects and then get substantial financing with the help of the Overseas Private Investment Corp. That corporation, a U.S. government agency, provides loan guarantees and political risk insurance to U.S. firms investing overseas.

Deese estimated that the two mechanisms together could catalyze up to $1 billion in investment -- still a small fraction of the financing India will need to meet its goal.

The two governments also said they had finalized the text of a defense logistics agreement to make it easier for their militaries to operate together.

The U.S. and India share concern about the rise of China, although New Delhi steers clear of a formal alliance with Washington.

This is Modi's fourth visit to the U.S. since he took office two years ago, and his seventh meeting with Obama.

The Indian leader is to address a joint meeting of Congress today.

Modi is on a five-nation tour that has also taken him to Switzerland, Afghanistan and Qatar. After the U.S., he is to visit Mexico.

Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Pennington, Tim Sullivan and Josh Lederman of The Associated Press; by Steven Mufson of The Washington Post; and by Angela Greiling Keane, Vrishti Beniwal and staff members of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 06/08/2016

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