Modi to present India's climate action agenda at COP26

INDIA prime minister will be presenting the formal position on India's climate action agenda and lay out the best practices and achievements in the sector at the COP26 summit in Glasgow on Monday (1).

During the high-profile segment of the World Leaders' Summit, Narendra Modi is scheduled to deliver a national statement alongside other world leaders and India's statement will come after that of prime minister of Poland Matuesz Morawiecki.

"Landed in Glasgow. Will be joining the COP26 Summit, where I look forward to working with other world leaders on mitigating climate change and articulating India's efforts in this regard," Modi said on Twitter post soon after he landed in Glasgow from the G20 Summit in Rome on Sunday night.

Modi was received to the notes of Scottish bagpipes as he arrived at his hotel in Glasgow, where he was greeted by a large group of Indian diaspora representatives with chants of "Bharat Mata Ki Jai".

On Monday morning (1), he is scheduled to hold a meet around 45 Indian diaspora representatives from Glasgow and Edinburgh, including prominent medics, academics and business people.

He will also meet the Indian winner of Prince William's Earthshot Prize, Delhi-based recycling firm Takachar founder Vidyut Mohan, and 14-year-old prize finalist from Tamil Nadu Vinisha Umashankar, inventor of a solar-powered ironing cart.

He will then proceed for the opening ceremony of day one of the World Leaders' Summit of the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), being held at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) in Glasgow.

Modi's bilateral meeting with his British counterpart Boris Johnson is expected to take place soon after Monday's opening ceremony, which will include cultural performances and a speech by Johnson.

According to official sources, the Johnson-Modi talks are expected to be quite brief and will focus on the UK-India climate partnership as well as a stock-take of the 2030 Roadmap for stronger UK-India Strategic Partnership, signed by the two leaders during a virtual summit in May this year.

Modi is expected to reiterate his invitation for Johnson to visit India.

Moreover, it would be the first in-person meeting between Modi and Johnson following the latter's twice cancelled visit to India earlier this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The bilateral meeting will be followed by a leader-level COP26 event entitled Action and Solidarity: The Critical Decade, for which the UK has extended a special invitation for Modi to deliver an address on the subject of "adaptation".

"India is among the top countries in the world in terms of installed renewable energy, wind and solar energy capacity. At the WLS, I will share India's excellent track record on climate action and our achievements," Modi said in a statement ahead of the summit.

"I will also highlight the need to comprehensively address climate change issues including equitable distribution of carbon space, support for mitigation and adaptation and resilience building measures, mobilisation of finance, technology transfer and importance of sustainable lifestyles for green and inclusive growth," he said.

Earlier at a summit on strengthening global supply chains convened by US president Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G20, Modi had underlined that trusted source, transparency and time-frame were three critical aspects for improving the supply chains.

'Global Supply Chain Resilience'

Speaking at the Summit on 'Global Supply Chain Resilience' on Sunday, the Indian prime minister said that India has built a reputation as one of the trusted sources of pharmaceuticals, IT and other items, and was now also looking forward to playing a role in the clean technology supply chain

"I suggest that we instruct our teams to meet at the earliest to draw up an action plan based on our shared democratic values, within a given time frame," he said.

While thanking Biden for convening the summit, Modi recalled that when the US president took office, he had said 'America is back' and "I would like to say, "Welcome back".

"In the initial months of the pandemic, we all felt the shortage of raw materials to make essential medicines, health equipment and vaccines. Now that the world is gearing up for economic recovery, the supply problems of semiconductors and other commodities are coming in the way of healthy growth," Modi said.

Modi asserted that in order to improve the global supply of vaccines, India has increased the pace of export of Covid vaccines.

"We are also working with our Quad partners to supply better and cost-effective Covid-19 vaccines to the Indo-Pacific region," he said

Modi reiterated that India is ready to produce 5 billion Covid vaccine doses for the world next year

"For this also, it is very important that there should not be any hindrance in the supply of raw materials," he said.

(With PTI inputs)