'It is absolutely critical on pure economic terms, but it's also smart politically, because a recent survey reported that 73 percent of Indians view climate change as the most pressing global concern,' US Secretary of State John Kerry tells a high-power audience in Washington, DC. Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com listens in.
'I want to express support for Prime Minister Modi's plan to help India's economy become more reliant on renewable sources of power,' US Secretary of State John F Kerry said, speaking at the 40th anniversary and Leadership Summit of the US-India Business Council in Washington, DC.
'And it is absolutely critical in the end on pure economic terms, but it's also smart politically, because a recent survey reported that 73 percent of Indians view climate change as the most pressing global concern.'
Kerry, who is co-chairing the inaugural US-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue along with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at the State Department, made clear that a major priority that Washington would want New Delhi to come on board -- sooner than later -- would be on the issue of climate change.
In an address to over 500 guests, including several CEOs and representatives of Fortune 500 companies as well as senior Obama administration and visiting Indian government officials, at the huge Andrew Mellon Auditorium on Monday, September 21, evening, Kerry dwelt largely on climate change.
Kerry, who followed a largely broad-based address by Vice-President Joe Biden on the growth of US-India ties, said, "The only thing I want to spend a moment on, if I can, and I want to reinforce what the vice-president said on a topic that I've spent 25 years being involved in, and that is this great challenge of climate change.'
The secretary of state then spoke of his visit to Beijing two years ago, where 'We negotiated an agreement which ultimately the president and President Xi (Jinping) were able to announce last year in Beijing, where China came to the table -- a developing country that was opposed to what we were working on (at the climate change conference) in Copenhagen but had come around to understand it was vital to respond on this issue.'
'And they joined us in helping to set goals that we will go to Paris with this December in an effort to reach a global agreement.'
'You live up to your obligation to future generations to do what we need to do with respect to the environment,' Kerry said. 'We live up to our responsibilities with respect to children who are hospitalised.'
He pointed out that 'the greatest cause of hospitalisation of children in the United States of America in the summer is environmentally induced asthma. It comes from the quality of air. We clean up the air, people are healthier, less cancer, less particles in the air.'
'But you also get the benefit of something called jobs, millions of jobs waiting to be created in the process of the transition which is transformative to alternative renewable other sources of energy as we de-carbonise over a period of time.'
'And it will take a period of time for those countries that are dependent on oil production and gas production,' Kerry acknowledged. 'It's not going to happen overnight.'
'So the possibilities of all of these plus-ups -- of jobs, your economy, of growth, of making the world more secure, moving to a new economy, of having independence with respect to energy -- it's rare you get an opportunity to sell people that. But it's also very rare that you have to sell it in the context of a 500-year drought, 500-year floods, extraordinary fires demolishing massive areas of wood and communities, insurance rates going up, insurance payouts going up.'
'If people really factored in the true accounting of global climate change costs,' Kerry said, 'you'd have a very different balance sheet than the one that people operate with today.'
'The Strategic and Commercial Dialogue that we are entering into tomorrow is one of the most important that we have with any country on the planet,' Kerry reiterated. 'We are the largest and oldest democracies. We are the countries of innovation and opportunity. We think alike. We believe in human rights and opportunity for people. We have incredible diversity in our counties and tolerance. We have an ability to be able to build this future.'
In this regard and in such a context, he declared, 'I believe that each of our countries is -- this is really an historic mark and moment, because each of our countries came from the same colonial background -- each of our countries is ethnically and culturally diverse, and each is a labourer for peace, and each seeks a world in which the light of the human spirit overcomes darkness.'
'So I hope that we will make the most of the opportunity that is staring us in the face,' Kerry said, 'and I hope that India will be the partner with the United States that helps to get the job done for hundreds of millions, billions of people around this planet who are waiting for people to lead in the right direction and to make government live up to its fundamental responsibilities.'
IMAGE: India is already facing the consequences of climate change. Photograph: Jayanta Dey/Reuters
