Prime Minister Modi to address COP26 World Leaders Summit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the COP26 summit at 8.30 pm (IST) on Monday. He will present the formal position on India's climate action agenda.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden and other world leaders on Monday participated at the COP26 World Leaders Summit in Glasgow, Scotland. PM Modi is scheduled to address the COP26 summit at 8.30 pm (IST) on Monday. He will be presenting the formal position on India's climate action agenda and laying out the best practices and achievements in the sector at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson along with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had received Prime Minister Modi when he arrived at the Scottish Exhibition Centre to attend the World Leaders Summit of COP26. Kicking off the World Leaders Summit of COP26, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, “As we look at the Green Industrial Revolution, it’s now needed around the world. We in the developed world must recognize the special responsibility we have, to help everybody else to do it”.

He said, “Even though for 200 years industrialized nations were in complete ignorance of problems they were creating, we now must find those fund-100 billion dollars a year promised in Paris by 2020 but which we won’t deliver until 2023 to help the rest of world to move to green technology”. Johnson said that the world is strapped to a ‘doomsday device’.

“It was here in Glasgow 250 years ago, that James Watt came up with a machine that was powered by steam produced by burning coal. We brought you to the very place where the doomsday machine began”, PM Johnson said during the opening ceremony.

Leaders such as Pam Gosal-the first Indian woman in the Scottish Parliament, Nadey Hakim of Scotland expressed their happiness as PM Modi is amongst the world leaders who are participating at the COP26. During the high-profile segment of the World Leaders' Summit, the Prime Minister is scheduled to deliver a national statement alongside other world leaders and India's statement will come after that of Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki, with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan set to follow.

After his three-day visit to Rome, Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Glasgow on Sunday to take part in the COP26 summit. PM Modi will also hold numerous bilateral meetings on the sidelines of COP26, including with the Prime Minister of the UK, Boris Johnson.

Modi is expected to reiterate his invitation for Johnson to visit India. Both governments remain committed to the implementation of the Roadmap, within prescribed timelines.

What is COP26 and why it is significant?

26th Conference of Parties (COP-26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is being held from October 31 to November 12 under the Presidency of the UK partnering with Italy. The high-level segment of COP-26, titled the World Leaders’ Summit (WLS) is being held from November 1 to November 2. The Summit is being attended by Heads of State/Government of more than 120 countries. COP-26 was originally slated to be held in 2020 but was deferred to 2021 given the Covid-19 pandemic.

The UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) embodies the global will and vision to combat climate change. The periodic Conference of Parties to this Convention has emerged as global climate summit, providing an opportunity for stocktaking and for charting the way forward.

PM Modi last attended the COP-21 in Paris in 2015, when the Paris Agreement was concluded, and whose implementation commences this year. At COP-26, the parties will work to achieve the completion of Paris Agreement implementation guidelines; mobilization of climate finance; actions to strengthen climate adaptation, technological development, and transfer; and keeping in reach the Paris Agreement goals of limiting the rise in global temperatures. The main agenda of the COP26 is to keep the 1.5 degrees goal alive, countries will have to negotiate and agree on several critical issues like carbon markets, loss, damage and long-term climate finance.