Climate: US for transparency to evaluate clauses

The Obama Administration on Wednesday exuded confidence that there will be enough transparency and sufficient data so that everyone can fairly evaluate whether countries are living up the commitments they made at the last-week's Copenhagen climate conference.

"One of the significant issues when the secretary (of state) arrived (in Copenhagen) on Thursday morning and worked through these issues during the day on Thursday and the President on Friday was in fact to make sure that there was a significant, verification aspect to the accord," assistant secretary of state for public affairs P J Crowley said.

"We think at the end of the day, through some very intensive dialogue by the President and the Secretary with world leaders, that what emerged from Copenhagen in fact have -- has the kind of transparency and mechanisms so that in fact we can have access to data with -- not in an intrusive way, but just so we'll have sufficient transparency and access to data so that everyone can fairly evaluate whether countries are living up to their agreements," Crowley said.

The statement from Crowley comes amidst controversial statement coming from David Axelrod, senior White House advisor, to the CNN last week in which he had said that the US would not only 'review' the implementation of Copenhagen Accord by India and China, but also would challenge New Delhi and Beijing if they do not meet the goals set by the agreement reached by the leaders of these countries in the Danish capital last week.

"We are going to be able to review what they're doing. We are going to be able to challenge them if they don't meet those goals," David Axelrod, senior White House advisor had told the CNN on Sunday.

"We have a goal for 2050 that comports with science, in terms of lowering climate change, and we're going to pursue domestic goals, and they have to be verifiable, and the international community is going to analyze those results.

"And there's going to be aid to developing -- we're going to raise money for developing nations to do that," he said.

Rejecting Axelrod's claim, Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh, had shot off an email to him saying that his interpretation of the 'international consultation and analysis' of unsupported actions was 'unacceptable' to India.