LONDON - India’s ambitions to roll out a massive solar energy project is set to receive a strong boost as part of a climate change deal in Copenhagen at the end of the year, a senior British minister has revealed.

British Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliand’s comments, made to IANS, came ahead of a Major Economies Forum (MEF) meeting in London Oct 18-19, set to be attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Special Envoy Shyam Saran.

Although the prospects of India being offered free green technology have receded in favour of what is being described as a “collaborative and cooperative” approach to technology development and sharing, India’s technology needs will be at the top of the agenda at the Copenhagen summit this December.

Miliband said he and Saran have held discussions about how to expand India’s solar energy programme as part of an overall financing deal in Copenhagen.

“India have a strong ambition on going solar,” Miliband told IANS, describing Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh as a “visionary person”.

Miliband said solar energy will deliver electricity to 20 million new households as part of an overall financing agreement in Copenhagen. Currently 450 million Indians do not have access to electricity.

British negotiators say current thinking on technology transfer - in New Delhi and London - has shifted to favour “horizontal cooperation” on technologies like carbon capture storage, knowledge sharing, and “getting our scientists and engineers to learn form each other”.

This shift is an acknowledgement of changed ground realities, with India and China leading on the development of many green technologies and even exporting them to developed countries, negotiators said.

“The long-standing discourse of [free] technology transfer fails to recognise how far India already is down the route of developing its own technologies,” one senior negotiator said.

Miliband had strong praise for domestic actions taken by China and India to lower their carbon emissions, and said it was up to developed countries now to respond.

“What’s changed in the past couple of months is that India have said ‘we will also pass domestic laws’,” Miliband said.

“The new Indian environment minister is frankly an incredibly visionary and imaginative person, who has come into his job and said, ‘Right, we’re going to pass a domestic law to help get an agreement and it’s going to be clear and domestically binding on India’.”

The MEF comprises Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and the US.

Sweden as the president of the EU, Denmark as host of the December summit and the UNFCCC - the UN’s climate change agency - will also participate.

The London MEF meeting is to be followed by a High Level Conference on Technology Development and Transfer in New Delhi Oct 22-23 aimed at advancing the “international policy dialogue on technologies needed to address climate change”.