Prime minister’s special envoy on climate change, Shyam Saran, on Tuesday said that climate change talks have reached a deadlock because of “deliberate attempts to downgrade” international expectations.

Talking at a session on trade and climate change on the last day of the India Economic Summit organised by the World Economic Forum and CII, Saran said there had been a “deliberate attempt to downgrade” international expectations, which was unfortunate. He said much of the decision-making had to come from the developed world, and there appeared to be inaction in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit where 192 nations are meeting in December to arrive at a global consensus on steps to tackle climate change.

Saran called for a common global platform to combine technological and scientific resources of different countries. “The technologies must be made available as public goods,” he said.

He said India wanted “a supportive regime to help us do what we are already doing in our own interest.” He said India could not make its action conditional on what others were doing, but had taken several steps on its own that would help mitigate the effects of climate change. But, he said, “If India has to do more, we need global support. Unless western nations worked with developing nations on mitigation, adaptation, technology and funding, one could not expect much progress.”

Any climate change agr­eement had to be “fair and equitable,” adding that there were very real fears on the economic prospects of countries, which could be adversely affected if nothing was done.

Developing nations have also asked for technology to be given by western nations at affordable prices, so that their companies could bring about the necessary changes in their production patterns.

London School of Economics professor Nicholas Stern said it was a “false choice” to say that growth was not compatible with environmental responsibility. He said many ambitious plans were being outlined by big economies like India, China and Brazil to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Stern had written a review on climate change in 2005 that had become a highly controversial document because it had said that the impact of climate change would be much stronger than what the IPCC report later projected.

He said at the meeting in Delhi that any protectionist measure as a response to carbon-emission reduction would be the “wrong response.” He said collaboration was the right answer. He also called upon the western world to get out of the thinking that they were taking steps to tackle the climate change problem while others were doing nothing.

Business leaders on the panel appeared to agree on the need for concerted action. “We need to leap off the cliff together,” said William A Reinsch, president of the US national foreign trade council.