NEW DELHI: The US special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry on Wednesday called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and promised US support to India’s climate plans by facilitating affordable access to green technologies.
The Prime Minister and Kerry discussed issues relating to the upcoming virtual leaders’ summit, which is to be held on April 22-23, to galvanise global support towards ‘net-zero’ emission goals in the run up to the 26th session of the UN climate conference.
Modi, during the meeting, noted that India is committed to meeting its nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement and that it was among the few countries on track to meet these commitments.
“The Prime Minister agreed that cooperation between India and the US particularly on financing innovation and faster deployment of green technologies would have a positive demonstration effect on other countries,” said a statement from the PMO.
Discussions centred on forthcoming climate leaders’ summit as well as climate issues in the context of COP26,” tweeted MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi on the Modi-Kerry meeting.
Kerry had on Tuesday held separate meetings with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, external affairs minister S Jaishankar and environment minister Prakash Javadekar with a focus on raising climate ambition by revising country-specific climate action targets under the Paris deal.
After concluding his first day of meeting with Indian leaders, Kerry made a strong pitch for bringing India on board for higher mitigation ambition through a tweet saying, “We must raise ambition together, or we’ll fail together.”