‘Growth and carbon caps can co-exist’

Hillary Clinton had a breakfast meeting with Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani, Sudha Murthy, Chanda Kochhar, Swati Piramal, Jamshyd Godrej, Ashok Ganguly, OP Bhatt, RK Krishnakumar and others in the Golden Room of the Taj. Later, at a press conference, she spoke about her discussions.

On carbon caps to counter climate change
The discussion we had about climate change and clean energy was extremely productive. The point that was made — which we believe in completely —underscores that there is no inherent contradiction in poverty eradication and moving to a low-carbon economy.

The US wants to see India continue to progress in its development in lifting millions and millions of her people out of poverty, providing greater opportunity for people to pursue their own dreams. That is something we will not expect any country to turn away from.

Our point is very simple. That we acknowledge now with president Obama that we have made mistakes in the US and that we along with other developed countries have contributed more significantly to the problems that we face of climate change. We are hoping that a great country like India will not make the same mistakes. And just as India went from having very few telephones to now having more than 500 million — mostly cell phones — by leap-frogging over the infrastructure, we believe India is innovative and entrepreneurial enough to figure out how to deal with climate change while continuing to lift people out of poverty and develop at a rapid rate.

Obviously, these decisions are up to the Indians. The private sector, based on our conversations, is looking for economic opportunities in clean energy and looking for ways to move toward low-carbon energy production. We are going to be engaged in these conversations.

On deals she expects to clinch during the visit
We see the dialogue that we are going to be embarking on with India to be extremely important. It will have five pillars — strategic cooperation, agriculture, education, health care, science and technology. There is a great willingness and it is not just the Indian government, it is also the Indian private sector, NGOs, and others who want to work with us.