The Himalayan glaciers feed seven of the world's greatest rivers, including the Ganges and the Yangtze, and supply water to about 40 per cent of the world's population.

Ramesh will go to China later this month to strike a deal with Beijing on climate change ahead of the UN summit in Copenhagen that aims at finding a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The minister said India and China could be a 'countervailing power' in resisting legally binding caps on greenhouse emissions that has the potential to slow down the progress of the world's two fastest growing economies.

Opposing legally binding emission caps, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told parliament recently that the Indian and Chinese positions are 'nearly identical, and we have been coordinating with that country'.