India ready to discuss climate change with US: Menon

New Delhi, June 5: India today accepted US President George Bush's proposal for a separate meeting in Washington later this year to discuss measures to arrest global warming, the theme of the G8 summit to be held in Heiligendamm (Germany) from tomorrow, but said any emission norms should be prescribed by the United Nations.

''We are ready to talk wherever necessary as we are not worried about the process. We will judge the process on the basis of substance and what is agreed and what we are ready to agree,'' Mr Menon told reporters.

Replying to questions on the Bush initiative to involve India, China and other fast developing nations in the efforts to check the emission of greeenhouse gases, the Foreign Secretary said India was ''comfortable'' with many of the proposals such as energy security and transfer of clean energy technology.

However, the main forum for taking decisions should be the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate (UNFCC) change, under which the Kyoto Protocol was finalised, he said.

''That is where decisions should be taken,'' he said. The Kyoto Protocol had exempted India and China from the targets set for industrialised nations for bringing down emission of climate changing gases.

''We have our own ideas too'' on climate change like China and Japan which had reacted to the Bush proposal,'' he said adding that New Delhi would put forth its views at such meetings.

What was needed was harmonisation of the views of different countries on global warming, he said. ''I don't think we have quite harmonised all ideas.'' Mr Menon also said it would not be fair to ask India to share equal responsibility in the reduction of emission of harmful gases as it would affect its development and poverty reduction.

India already had incorporated measures to check emission of greenhouse gases in its Eleventh Plan (2007-12), be it the energy sector, mass transport or housing which had high impact on the climate, he said.

Asked whether Mr Bush was trying to put pressure on India to yield more than what was fair on the issue of climate change, Mr Menon said India had already made ''sizeable'' contribution to checking the emission of harmful gases. The initiative to arrest global warming had been taken by India far back in the 1970s when Ms Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister.

India was on par with Germany in energy efficiency, Mr Menon contended.

''What is important is the burden of incremental cost must be shared fairly under the common and differential responsibility, depending upon the capability of each nation,'' he said.

Further, India's per capita emission of such gases was one of the lowest in the world, he pointed out.

UNI