India is tough on climate change: Stern

US Special Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern today said India is difficult to negotiate with on the issue of climate change, but he is working with New Delhi on tackling the global threat.

"India is difficult. I mean, there's no question about it, India is tough (on climate change)," Stern told US lawmakers in response to a question before House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming.

"They (India) need to articulate a strong, robust set of actions that are going to reduce their emissions significantly from where they would otherwise be from their business as usual," he argued when Congressman Jay Inslee referred him to the Indian argument that their par capita emission is far less than those of the developed world.

Inslee referred Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's assurance that India will never exceed the per capita emissions of the industrialised nations.

"Now, of course, if they get to that level, the planet will be cooked long ago. What do we say to that argument and what is it, in regard to India, that we expect?" he asked.

Stern said that India's argument was not good enough.

"I say to the argument that — obviously that's not good enough," he responded.

New Delhi needs to get its strong action reflected in an international agreement, he said, adding, US is working with India to get effective results.

"There got to be a mechanism for financing and technology dissemination. Those are the key issues, and we're working with them on all of those issues," he said.

"There's got to be a verification system. I mean, it goes under the rubric of MRV — measurement, reporting and verification — but verification is really the most important piece, so that everybody can see what everybody else is doing," he said.

According to trajectory of the bill that came out of the House, the per capita emissions of the United States are going to decline very significantly over a period of 40 years or so, if you take this out to 2050, he said.

"When China, or India, or France, or anybody else says, 'we're going to do X,' there has to be a system to see whether they've actually done X," he added.