Buenos Aires: India will play its “due and responsible” role at the climate change negotiations in Poland next week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured UN chief Antonio Guterres during a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit.
Foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale said the main topic of Prime Minister Modi’s discussion with the UN chief was the forthcoming COP24 climate change meeting in Katowice, Poland from December 3. “The secretary-general has said India plays a major role in climate change negotiations. He acknowledged that the Prime Minister had taken a number of concrete steps towards addressing climate change.”
“He mentioned the International Solar Alliance. The secretary-general also said that when he was in Delhi last month he had seen for himself the manner in which the prime minister led the other campaigns, including Swachh Bharat.”
It was the secretary-general’s sincere hope and expectation that in the forthcoming meeting in next week in Poland, India will pay a uniting role, the role of a good Samaritan.
He hoped that India would bring together the various groups of developed countries and developing countries — those which had money those which needed money — to come up with certain solutions, which would eventually feed into the climate change summit that the UN chief was planning in 2019, he said.
“It was a good meeting. The prime minister assured the secretary-general that India played an important role in climate change negotiations and that it was part of the Indian culture and civilisation to preserve the environment, and he could be rest assured that India would play its due and responsible role at COP24,” he said.
According to PMO sources, the UN secretary-general has reached out to Prime Minister Narendra Modi twice in the last two months.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.