Apologies that it has been many weeks since I've written - it's not because I have been sitting idle! September was the busiest month working on climate change and energy issues in my year and a half in India. Internationally, we had UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon convening his High Level Meeting in New York, bringing together over a hundred Heads of State, including my Prime Minister Gordon Brown, to talk climate change. We had the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh where leaders discussed climate finance along with other top tier economic issues. We had key Ministers and lead negotiators from around the world meeting for the Greenland Dialogue and Major Economies Forum in the middle of the month. And official level delegations came together in Bangkok for the latest round of UN negotiations 28 September - 9 October. So the pace is certainly picking up as Copenhagen approaches.

The other positive new note in September outside India was the election of a new Government in Japan, who immediately signalled a break from past climate change policies with their announcement of a mid-term target to reduce emissions by 25% on a 1990 baseline - thereby bringing them into line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's recommendation of action necessary to keep global temperature rise within a two degree threshold.

In India, the month was kick-started with a very successful dual visit of the UK Ministers for Energy and Climate Change and for International Development - I hope you saw the coverage through other media channels. My focus then shifted as domestic policy announcements came thick and fast.

100 days into his tenure as Minister of Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh appeared to have concluded his strategic reviews of India's international negotiating stance and domestic implementation plans, and recognised where they could be improved. Domestically, he has set his sights on overhauling the legal and regulatory structures which oversee scrutiny of environmental planning, improving the coordination and output of India's climate science institutions, galvanising the finalisation of the eight missions under India's National Action Plan on Climate Change, and setting targets for those sectors of the economy where there is significant potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Each one of these is a worthy goal.

Jairam Ramesh has also thought hard of how to improve the Indian Government's strategic communications around their climate change position, intensively engaging the domestic and international media, as well as reaching out directly to some of the key stakeholder groups at home. In the climate change world, everyone has sat up and taken notice. I have consistently made the point to interlocutors in India and internationally that India had a strong story to tell on climate change, but that it did not always present that story as effectively as it might, or use it to leverage action in others. As a metaphor-minded colleague said recently, there is little sense in sitting on the moral high ground while rising sea levels lap at your feet. It appears that Jairam Ramesh has arrived at the same conclusion.

So the first line of his new narrative is that India will be a "deal-maker not a deal-breaker" in the negotiations - a neat turn of phrase. Jairam Ramesh has cogently explained the drivers behind India's negotiating position - the need to scale up access to energy to power economic development, the energy and carbon efficiency of India's present economy, India's limited historical responsibility for causing global climate change. But rather than stopping there and saying to the developed world "so it's you that needs to move first", Jairam Ramesh has gone on to say that India recognises the benefits that will come from a more robust set of low carbon growth targets and policies, and from a clearer explanation to the international community of how it is performing against these.

At a stroke, Jairam Ramesh helped transform the dynamic of the international climate change discussion (outside the formal negotiations at least) bringing a breath of fresh air to the big multilateral meetings in the US last month. That was Super September. So why Awkward October, when once again the focus of the Indian media appears to have become the obstacles strewn along the road to Copenhagen rather than what we can do to achieve success there? Well as 15 October is Blog Action Day, I shall pick up this thread again on Thursday...