Merkel, Modi call for climate cooperation
BERLIN: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a joint plea for international cooperation after a G7 summit at the weekend failed to produce an agreement on climate change.
“We are all interconnected,” Modi said at a press conference after the fourth Indo-German biennial consultations in Berlin on Tuesday.
“Democracy and diversity — those are the pillars on which a rules-based world order rests... It is important that we really uphold these rules.”
At the G7 summit in Italy, President Donald Trump announced that the US would take more time to confirm whether it is going to make good on its threat to quit the Paris climate accord. The agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions has been signed by 147 countries.
Though India is not a member of the G7, Merkel praised the Indian prime minister for his country’s “very intense and engaged implementation of the Paris agreement.”
The leaders held talks at the chancellery that focused on trade and investment as well as cooperation in science, energy and counter-terrorism before the pair oversaw a clutch of pacts being signed.
Modi and Merkel, who were due to participate in a meeting of business delegates later in the day, also discussed trade talks between India and the European Union, which came to a standstill in 2013.
Germany is the largest trading partner for India in the EU, with bilateral trade valued at nearly $20 billion, nearly two-thirds of which represents German exports to India.
Germany is also one of the greatest contributors of foreign investment in India. It is the first stop on Modi’s fournation tour. He is to visit Spain, Russia and France, where he is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, as well as Presidents Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron. — dpa