US Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti laid emphasis on working alongside India to address the challenges faced by humanity due to climate change while addressing the gathering in New Delhi. Garcetti delivered the speech on the occasion of annual South Asia Women in Energy summit. Ambassador’s speech centered around four Ps that are ‘peace’, ‘prosperity’, ‘planet’ and ‘people’. Garcetti also attached importance to women empowerment.
“We know that climate change is about tackling emissions, but it is not just only about it. It is also about building healthcare systems as they have an impact on the environment around us,” said Garcetti on the sidelines of South Asia Women in Energy summit.
“Today I really want to focus on our planet because it is the cradle of our health and everything that we do stems from that. This summit highlights an essential truth that preserving our planet requires us to face challenges that really know no boundaries. Climate change, public health threats and demand for sustainable energy are the biggest threats that we have lived through in recent history,” adds Garcetti.
“Climate change is killing human beings and threatening the strength of community. But the United States and India have been proud to chair the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) founded here by India. We have the honor with our USAID administrator Samantha Power to co-chair the last two years of work together. To make sure that communities have the training, that we don’t just focus on reducing carbon footprint which is absolutely necessary, but also help people live in the current conditions that they are in.The international platform of CDRI is incredible as it is based on the principle that prevention is better that the cure. I founded a group called Climate Mayors, when our country threatened to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. Slowly Republican led, Democratic led and independent led cities joined the group. In the end, we had 737 cities across 48 of our 50 states who said we will enact the work of Paris Agreement. We also locked the US- India, new and emerging Renewable Energy Technology Action Platform (RETAP),” further adds Garcetti.
“India is the second largest source of visas to the United States, and number one source of students. I looked at everything we were doing from defense partnerships to USAID, I looked at the technology, economic and trade work we are doing, our climate, women ‘s empowerment, health work and I said this is so wide as nobody knows how to tell the story,” said the ambassador while talking about India-US partnership.
