Under the expiring Kyoto Protocol, only industrialized countries have committed themselves to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and submit annual reports on their measures. Currently, the negotiations leading up to the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December have deadlocked on the question of similar demands on developing nations.

India has consistently insisted that the measures it undertakes as part of its domestic measures to counter climate change will not be subject to international verification and reporting, unless it is funded through international financing or use technology received from abroad, "The Economic Times" reports.

However, India has undertaken a ”nuanced shift” in its position and now offers an annual report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, detailing India’s greenhouse gas emissions and measures to reduce it.

”An annual communication to the UN will say what we’re doing, what the results are, how it is being implemented, the impact...We want to be transparent to the international community, but domestically accountable to our voters,” India’s Minister of State for Environment and Forest Jairam Ramesh told the Hindustan Times on Saturday, after returning from New York, where the offer was made at a UN summit on climate change.

According to "The Economic Times", sources close to the negotiations argue that Mr. Ramesh’s offer may become an opportunity to force India to accept international verification and monitoring of domestic measures.

”An offer like the one made by Mr. Ramesh would only allow for tightening of global monitoring on climate change policies. India is not required under the UNFCCC to give such an annual report, so there was no need for India to volunteer,” a climate change expert tells the newspaper.