However, at the climax of a four-day visit to China last week to discuss a wide range of bilateral environmental issues, India's Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh felt upbeat enough to proclaim that India and China are "standing 100 percent together" on issues of climate change, and that "India feels closer to China than the United States in this regard."

Ramesh's optimism, Indian experts believe, stems from a fairly successful China trip, one that led him to declare that "India considers China its most important ally in the Copenhagen negotiations." The development is all the more significant given the promise that India has managed to extract from China that the latter will not strike any deal with the United States that could undermine India's negotiating position at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change summit in Copenhagen this December. China has also assured India that its standing agreements with the U.S. only reflect engagements in specific areas like energy efficiency and renewable energy, and that there was no hidden side-deal on carbon emissions that may impact India negatively.

In a first of sorts, India and China have also agreed to coordinate and calibrate their positions before every major international gathering on climate change, and have resolved not to accept legally binding targets on emissions reduction that may impact their developmental priorities. The two have also called "for greater commitments from Western countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

At the same time, lest they be seen as unrelenting, the two Asian neighbors have also promised to work toward changing the Western perception that they are against a consensus being reached at Copenhagen. Here, however, India's position is clear: that any consideration of committing to a peak in emissions would depend on Western countries fulfilling their commitments first.

As is well known, both China and India are far from enthusiastic about the West's target date of 2050 for slashing emissions by 50 percent. They are of the view that the developed world must lead in accepting binding targets to limit emissions and transfer clean energy technology to the developing world. This is all the more pertinent considering that none of the Western nations have fulfilled their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, an international environmental treaty aimed at achieving stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

Efforts linking trade protectionism to climate change issues have also been anathema to both China and India. The recent passage by the U.S. House of Representatives of the Waxman-Markey legislation, which called for slapping penalties on imports from countries which did not accept legally binding emission reduction targets, is a point of contention for both.

India has consistently maintained at global climate talks that it won't accept a legal commitment to cap its emission of greenhouse gases (GHG), because it needs to focus on energy use for growth and development. It also believes that the industrialized countries are primarily to blame for almost all the GHG that is now contributing to global warming. India has buttressed its argument by pointing to its low carbon emission per capita -- only 4 percent of the world's total, compared to over 20 percent for the U.S. It is the world's fourth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, behind China, the U.S. and Russia.

Last month, Ramesh had a tense exchange with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her India visit, when he asserted that India's economic growth cannot be crimped due to environmental issues. As he put it, "For us, climate change is not just an environmental issue. For us, climate change is a development issue." India has argued that just as the Western nations experienced no limits to growth during the Industrial Revolution, the emerging economies should not be constrained by any pressure from the West on their route to development.

However, in mid-August, China released a government research report that estimates the country's emissions would peak by 2030, by which time it would overtake the U.S. as the world's leading producer of GHGs.

India and China, with a combined one-third of the world's population, will be key to a successful outcome at Copenhagen. The talks, in which 192 nations will attempt to hammer out a follow-on replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, will be spearheaded by the U.N. and aim to reach 25 percent cuts in carbon emissions from 2000 levels for developing countries by 2050.

Against this backdrop, Ramesh's China visit is imbued with tremendous symbolism. By helping to forge a united front on climate change between the two Asian neighbors, the trip has underscored the wide gap that separates the positions of the developing countries and the developed world. How this new dynamic plays out against Western pressure at Copenhagen remains to be seen. Even more interesting is how it will impact the complex multilateral equation between the U.S., India and China, as all three struggle to find a stable arrangement, both in Asia and beyond.

**Neeta Lal is a New Delhi-based journalist, formerly with the Times of India and editor of the Asian Age Sunday Section. Her work has appeared in numerous U.S., Asian and European print and Web-based publications.