Obama's trip to India pushes climate change talks forward

Until now, India has been the elephant in the room when it came to the climate change negotiations.

Unlike China, which reached an unprecedented climate change deal with the U.S. recently, India has refused to say what, if anything, it would do to reduce the country's growing greenhouse gas emissions. It's taken a tough line that rich nations had to make the first move ahead of the United Nations climate talks in Paris later this year.

President Obama's trip to India over the weekend, however, seems to have softened the country's holdout stance.

Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed the "importance of working together and with other countries on climate change" and said they would "plan to cooperate closely this year to achieve a successful and ambitious agreement in Paris."

While a little short on specifics, it signaled a shift away the country's long-held position that any agreement should apply only to the developed world, as was case with the Kyoto Protocol.

India's commitment to a more inclusive agreement should sway other holdouts from the developing world to sign onto a new deal that is expected to call for all nations to do their part to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) over what they were in preindustrial times, which most scientists contend would avert the worst impacts of climate change.

"The commitment by President Obama and Prime Minister Modi to cooperate in the run-up to Paris is significant because India is a very important participant in that process, and they have been outspoken in the past in being resistant to departing from the structure of the Kyoto Protocol," Robert N. Stavins, director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, told CBS News. "Hence, if the USA and India can be on the same page (or at least the same book) regarding the structure of the Paris agreement, the likelihood of a successful outcome in Paris will be greatly increased."

The promise from India is a big victory for Obama and shows he is much more invested in reaching a deal in Paris than in previous attempts -- such as Copenhagen when he flew in at the last minute and tried unsuccessfully to salvage a deal.

The India talks comes just two months after Obama inked a historic deal with China on climate change. The United States, the world's second biggest emitter, agreed to reduce emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels. China, which is the world's biggest emitter, agreed to begin peaking its emissions by 2030 -- much soon than expected.

India is the fourth biggest emitter, but when population is considered it falls far back. The United States releases 17.62 metric tons of carbon dioxide per person per year, compared to only 1.45 for India.

While India may have disappointed some by refusing to announce similar targets, analysts said it did commit to taking small steps to shifting away from its growing dependence on coal and other fossil fuels.

The two sides announced several clean energy initiatives -- including expansion of financing for clean energy projects -- that build on early commitments from Modi to increase amount of solar power in the country from 20 gigawatts to 100 gigawatts by 2022.

"The India-US agreement will help to secure India's ambitious program around renewable energy growth, ultimately allowing India to build upon and realize its low carbon aspirations," said Krishnan Pallassana, the India executive director at The Climate Group, a nonprofit which promotes the rapid scale-up of low carbon energy and technology.

"In the past few days, both leaders reiterated their own personal commitment to generating and securing clean energy, and the potential this could have to connect more Indian households with sustainable energy," he said. "Forty percent of India is still not connected to the grid. Clean energy, particularly solar and wind, could eventually connect these homes via renewable sources, and revitalize India's failing energy system."

Anjali Jaiswal, the director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's India Initiative, said she is hopeful that India will offer "meaningful and ambitious targets" related to its emissions by the Paris meeting.

But she also said Modi was in a difficult spot, having to balance the need to pull tens of millions of people out of poverty while coming up with solutions on the climate change front.