U.S and India to unveil climate action efforts

The U.S and India are set to unveil landmark joint efforts to fight climate change when President Obama visits New Delhi in January.

Obama's visit comes on the back of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru that ran from 1-12 December and is seen as an important opportunity to persuade one of the world's biggest carbon emitters to step up its climate action efforts.

India is the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions after China and the US and is responsible for only approximately six per cent of global emissions.

Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and President Obama are expected to unveil a number of initiatives to expand research and access to clean energy technologies.

The collaboration is not expected to be as far reaching as Novembers milestone agreement between the US and China to cut their GHG emissions.

Todd Stern, the State Department climate change envoy, said: "I am expecting a useful meeting but we don't have anything in the works of the kind that we were involved with in China.”

The visit is seen as another key moment as the worlds major economies begin to deliver on the promises made in Lima to fight climate change in the build up to the signing of a binding global agreement in Paris at the 2015 UN climate talks.

UN member states are expected to announce their emissions reduction targets by 31 March as part of the deal.

Prakash Javadekar, the Environment, Forests and Climate Change Minister, said: "Are we expecting from India too much and leaving the polluters without any accountability? This is a big thing that developing countries are doing. We are doing very aggressive actions on our own. So we would like to put them on record and on public domain.”