Strong commitment to climate action rooted in the Vedas: PM Modi
Buenos Aires DEC 4: PM Narendra Modi has told UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, ‘the motivation for his “strong commitment” to climate action is rooted into ancient Hindu scriptures, the Vedas.
Modi and Guterres met last week on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the two held discussions about climate change and India’s support for the Paris Climate Agreement.
The UN chief thanked Modi for his commitment to increase India's nationally determined contributions to the Paris Agreement. Guterres had also held discussions with Modi during his three-day visit to India this year coinciding with Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary on October 2.
Guterres said, “It's not only Christianity, I was speaking to Prime Minister Modi of India recently and asking him what was his motivation for his very strong commitment to climate action and he said it's in the Vedas, the founding books of Hinduism. I think this is felt in all religions.”
The Secretary-General noted, ‘ that climate change is already "a matter of life and death" for many people, nations and countries of the world, and that the science is telling us we need to move faster.’Citing various alarming UN reports including one on rising global CO2 emissions and another one on increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere he called on nations to pay attention to the science and step up their pace as well as their ambitions.
Kicking off the high-level event in Poland, along with several other high-level representatives, Guterres highlighted key messages for the thousands of representatives of the world's nations, non-profit organisations, UN agencies, and private sector companies gathered in Katowice.
In Paris, three years ago, countries collectively agreed to keep global temperature rises to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, and if possible, to limit the rise to 1.5C. Now, in Poland, they have to agree on how they will achieve this collectively.