Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said on Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi played a key role by signing the Paris Agreement on climate change last year. “India wants to be a part of the solution,” he said while delivering a special address on “India’s Climate and Energy Policy: Entry Points for International Cooperation” via videoconference at Manipal Advanced Research Group (MARG), a constituent of Manipal University. According to a release issued here on Saturday, Mr. Prabhu opined that the Paris Agreement is a “progressive deal” despite many loopholes. “The priority now is to examine how we should take the best out of this deal,” he added. The event formed a part of a thematic seminar series “Environmental Security in India” organised by Dhanasree Jayaram, Project Associate at MARG. This project is proposed in co-operation with Adelphi, a leading Berlin-based think tank. He suggested that Manipal University should set up a centre for climate change.
The special address was followed by a talk by M.D. Nalapat, Vice-Chair, MARG, who touched upon regional water economy and hydro politics. He insisted, “We must stop the blame game with Pakistan and China, and ramp up our water supply in order to address water shortage.”
With respect to China’s alleged plans to build huge dams on rivers flowing to South Asia (including India) and Southeast Asia, he commented that China cannot afford to provoke India by choking water flow because the latter has the biggest market in most sectors. Manipal University Vice Chancellor H. Vinod Bhat and Prof. Nalapat endorsed Mr. Prabhu’s proposal to set up a centre for climate change at the University with global standards. The Climate Diplomacy Initiative is a collaborative effort of the German Federal Foreign Office in partnership with Adelphi, the release said.
