'Trip to New Delhi to start a strategic dialogue with India'

I / Washington July 14, 2009, 11:19 IST

Ahead of her visit to India, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today said that she is travelling to New Delhi to start a strategic dialogue with it which will include issues like climate change and clean energy.

Clinton is scheduled to travel to India later this week - her first as the Secretary of State - which she has been saying would be the starting point of a new Indo-US relationship, which she fondly says 3.0.

"I am going to India Thursday night for a couple of days of consultation. We are starting a strategic dialogue between myself and the new External Minister of Foreign Affairs," Clinton said in response to a question during a US Agency for International Development Town Hall meeting.

"You know climate change and clean energy are on there (on the agenda) but we need to be as specific as possible.

So, any thoughts any of you have, please try to get them to me," Clinton said in response to a question on climate change.

Referring to the recently concluded Major Economies Forum meeting in Italy on climate change, she said the results were actually somewhat better than the Obama Administration had expected. But with that they face the challenge of persuading India and China to figure out what they can do, and what obligations they will take on commensurate with their own development goals, she said.

"I think that there's a real role for development expertise in trying to come up with ideas — clean energy technology transfers, small-scale clean energy projects that can be up scaled in ways that the Chinese and the Indians would find attractive; looking at targets that can be met with increasing aid over time," Clinton said.

She said there is got to be a lot of creative thought as to how this can be done.

"Of course, it's true more generally than India and China, but they are going to be the "bell cows," if you will, you know, a lot of the developing countries will look to them," she added.