Mother India is the Texas of the world community, no one fundamentally misunderstands her more than the United States. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an official visit to New Delhi and part of the agenda included climate change. The irony of visiting the ITC Green Center, which is owned by India's second-largest cigarette maker, seemed not only lost on the participants but was a perfect encapsulation of the diplomatic problem that confronts the two nations over global warming.
Clinton's team is entertaining the notion that governments are rather more willing to do something than be asked to sign on dotted lines. Unfortunately, if the strategy was to convince the Indian Government to sign onto doing more, the diplomacy seems to have fallen short. The Indian minister of state for environment feels India is being unduly pressured to do more than they already are. And they also feel pressured by legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would effectively punish countries for failing to cut emissions. Indian government objects to the legally binding part of the emissions problem.
New Delhi has put the problem at the doorstep of the developed world and called it into account, while agreeing, in principle, to the Group of Eight's more modest climate proposals. At least both parties recognized that in the end, it's the Indian Economy, Stupid. But unless the developing world and the developed world can find accommodation, it may be Mother Nature that decides the matter.
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