Acknowledging Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s enunciation of India’s development imperatives at the Paris climate summit, the United States has said that it proposes to work closely with both India and China in the push for an “ambitious climate agreement”.
“We can pursue an ambitious climate agreement even while India pursues an ambitious development policy. And, in fact, we can pursue the types of solutions that can meet both climate and development challenges,” US Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters in Paris.
Stating that President Barack Obama had “a very constructive meeting” with both Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, Rhodes said Modi himself has signalled his “commitment to pursuing an ambitious agreement here in Paris”.
“India has put forward its own targets. And the President said in the meeting with Prime Minister Modi that he certainly understands that whether it’s India or another developing country, there has to be a focus on making sure that countries can continue to lift people out of poverty. We have a recognition, of course, that you have hundreds of millions of Indians who don’t even have access to electricity,” Rhodes said, according to a transcript released by the White House.
At the same time, Obama reiterated in meetings that the push for a climate deal and the pursuit of economic development are “not competitive goals”, but ones that can be “mutually reinforcing”, Rhodes said, adding that the US leadership will be working not only with its traditional allies, but with India and China as this is “going to be essential to getting a good deal”.
Noting that Modi joined Obama at the US Mission Innovation event soon after their bilateral, Rhodes said it demonstrated a recognition investments in basic research on renewable sources of energy to reduce emissions can be a source of development for India and other countries.
Contrasting the Paris conference with previous efforts on tackling climate change, the US official said this is for the first time that nearly every country in the world has come forward with a target to curtail their emissions and advance the prospect of reaching a global agreement.
The Obama administration’s own approach has been “to bring together the entire world, including emerging economies like China and India”, Rhodes said, adding: “Given the fact that they are more and more the source of carbon emissions, clearly we have felt throughout the course of this administration that China and India need to be a part of the solution.”