Saving energy the way forward: Modi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday combating climate change was everyone’s duty, in an apparent message to affluent nations against shifting responsibility to developing countries a day ahead of a key United Nations climate conference in Paris.
Hours before leaving for the summit, Modi suggested in his monthly radio show that global warming was already triggering disasters like the torrential rain that battered Tamil Nadu and other parts of southern India this month.
He also urged people to conserve energy, use it efficiently and adopt renewable forms like solar, while he stressed on the need for generating awareness about the impact of climate change on the country.
“The whole world is worried about climate change. There are discussions everywhere over it and concerns are being expressed,” Modi said in the 14th edition of the Mann ki Baat programme, as he also underscored his government’s initiatives like distribution of over three crore LED lamps. “There is acceptance for it (climate change) as an index before any work is done. The temperature of the earth should not increase now. It is the responsibility and concern of all.”
Modi and other world leaders are gathering in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the threat of dangerous warming due to human activities. India has been arguing for common but differentiated responsibilities to tackle climate change. “We all look forward to a concrete outcome in Paris, within the framework of the UN Convention on Climate Change. The framework has an appropriate balance of collective action: Equity and common-but-differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities,” the PM had earlier said. India maintains developed countries have been the major polluters over the years and should assume a greater role in fighting global warming by funding and transferring low-cost technologies to developing nations.
The Prime Minister also pitched for joint exercises by South Asian nations for disaster preparedness and said the government will mark December 14 as the national energy conservation day.
“We keep receiving news about the natural disasters from every corner of the world. Such are the tragedies which have never been heard earlier or imagined,” he said in the radio show.