Action for a Global Climate Community organised a meeting at the Royal Over-Seas League in London, on 7-8 July 2009, marking a third major step in the progress of the High-Level India-EU Dialogue, initiated in Potsdam in May 2008 and pursued in Delhi in February 2009.

Click here to see the programme of the meeting and the list of participants.

The event was kindly supported by the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change and the Oak Foundation.

In the form of a working group, the intended outcomes of this meeting was to agree on a report prepared by AGCC and its partners, entitled "Enhancing cooperation: Report of the High-Level India-EU Dialogue", in lines with the Delhi seminar conclusions.

This report sets out the recommendations considered essential by the Dialogue in order to strengthen the cooperation between India and the European Union on climate and clean development. The emphasis is put on the necessity of implementing flagship projects such as on solar energy, black carbon, biochar and adaptation, and on the importance of strengthening the existing institutional links between both sides.

The High-Level India-EU Dialogue report can be downloaded here.

After one day of full discussions, the following conclusions were delivered:

"The India-EU Summit will take place in Delhi from 6 November 2009, in the shadow of Copenhagen. To be a success, the Summit needs to do something which cannot be achieved by the global Conference but which contributes to global action.  A programme of enhanced cooperation between India and the EU would show the world how our strategic partnership could bring about real progress on clean energy and sustainable development through flagship projects for solar energy, black carbon, biochar, adaptation and a major private – public clean infrastructure investment fund (CIIF).

The 2008 Summit agreed that “climate change is one of the great challenges of our time and decided that clean and sustainable development should be a joint priority area of EU-India cooperation.” The Leaders “agreed to work towards a long term cooperative action including a long term global goal.” The lack of tangible progress so far highlights the need for more effective mechanisms to drive the agenda forward between summits.

The meeting proposed that existing mechanisms, such as the EU-India Energy Panel or the EU-India Science and Technology Steering Committee, could be strengthened with a small permanent secretariat of civil servants from India and the EU, based in Delhi, and overseen by an Action Group or Task Force of six senior people – representing the Commission, the Presidency (on behalf of the Council of Ministers) and Parliament from EU, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prime Minister’s  Climate Panel and Lok Sabah from India – to give the strategic partnership political weight between Summits.

The meeting concluded by agreeing that

• AGCC will produce a revised report, incorporating the additional points raised at the London meeting on finance and private sector involvement;
• AGCC will produce a very short proposal on the flagship projects and enhanced mechanisms for the EU-India Summit (maximum two pages);
• Participants will work together with their respective governments and the EU to propose that AGCC presents this proposal to the next Summit in person."

Click here to read the final report of the meeting