India’s rise over dirty technologies in US interest: Obama

With the world closely tracking India’s moves at the global climate summit, US President Barack Obama has offered New Delhi clean technologies that will allow Asia’s third largest economy to move over dirty technologies and achieve developmental goals in an environmental friendly way.

During an interview to the CBS news earlier in the week, Mr Obama spoke about the importance of offering India with technologies that will help India achieve its goals. Mr Obama’s remarks acquire an added significance as countries are literally working round the clock in Paris to arrive at an agreement which not only addresses challenges posed by climate change, but also developmental needs of emerging economies like India. “It’s in our interest to say to them, here’s technologies that can allow you to leapfrog over the dirty technologies; do it in a cleaner, smarter way,” he said.

“We do that not out of charity; we do it because – here’s one thing you can’t do. You can’t build a wall to the atmosphere. You can’t build a border wall when it comes to carbon emissions or global temperatures or the oceans,” Mr Obama said. “And so this is one of those things where we’re all in it together and we’ve got to make sure that people have incentives to work with us,” he added.

India has been the leading voice of developing countries in combating climate change. On the opening day of the COP21 in Paris, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had put the onus on the developed world to focus on equity and help in reaching a comprehensive agreement to combat climate change.

India has also agreed to cut usage of coal in return for climate finance, as the money would help the country in availing new technology that will help it combat climate change. Mr Obama’s assurance to offer new technology to India augurs well for India’s mission to combat climate change.

Indicating the seriousness of helping India and the developing countries with environment friendly technology, Mr Obama said: “We already are involved in all kinds of programs to help countries develop their energy strategies, to develop adaptations to rising seas or drought or improve agriculture. So there are a bunch of streams of money that we already provide various countries.”

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