"Nature A Part Of Our Culture": PM Modi On Efforts To Counter Climate Change

India doesn't believe in exploiting the nature as it is a part of the Indian culture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today as he highlighted his government's efforts to counter climate change.

He made the remark during a joint statement with US President Joe Biden following bilateral talks at the White House.

"As far as India is concerned, the environment, and climate, are extremely important in our cultural traditions for us. The environment is an article of faith. This is not just something that we need to do for convenience. We believe this. We do not believe in the exploitation of nature," he said.

“In order for all of creation to work, we can make nature -- we cannot have exploitation of nature and we have always believed this," he said.

He also said that India is the only G20 country that has fulfilled the promises made in Paris. The Paris Agreement is an international treaty signed in Paris in 2015 covering climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The Prime Minister, who is on his first state visit to the US, also recalled the Indian Railways' target to becoming 'net zero' carbon emitter by the end of this decade.

“You must understand the scale of Indian Railways. When we talk about Indian Railways, it means that every day the entire population of Australia travels in wagons on our trains. And we have set ourselves the target to achieve net zero for our Railways," he said.

India is also working in the area of green hydrogen, the Prime Minister said.

“We want India to be a green hydrogen hub and we are working towards this. International Solar Alliance has been launched by India and many countries have joined it and are working with India,” he added.

“We will not only fulfil our responsibilities, but we will also help you in the area of climate change…There is a lot of destruction of infrastructure as well and therefore because of climate change, the kind of crisis we are feeling we need to develop infrastructure that is resilient,” he said.

Biden too chipped in with his government's climate change initiatives and said the largest climate find was passed by the US last year.

"It's the most serious problem we face as human beings. We have to keep it below 1.5 degrees Celsius. We've made enormous progress in US in dealing with this issue by doing three things. Number one, by insisting that we move every one of our industries into a position where they can take advantage of cheaper and more extensive and more available renewable energy,” he said.

"Whether it's solar or wind or hydrogen and green hydrogen. There's a whole range of things we've been working on. In addition to that, we find ourselves in a position where what we've done is that we have significantly reduced for example, I made a commitment that we are going to make sure that by 2030, 30 per cent of all our land and sea and oceans, were in conservation, could not be developed,” the President added.

PM Modi, who reached Washington from New York yesterday, is set to address a joint sitting of the US Congress and attend a State dinner.