Modi Highlights Solar, Disaster and Climate in G20 speech at Riyadh

[PMO Office Press Release/22.11.2020]

1. Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, participated in the 15th G20 Summit convened by Saudi Arabia in virtual format, on 21-22 November, 2020. The agenda of the second day of the G 20 summit focused a session on building an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future and a side event on safeguarding the planet.

2. The Prime Minister in his speech underscored that for inclusive, resilient and sustainable recovery in a Post COVID world, effective global governance is required and reformed multilateralism through improvement in character, governance and processes of multilateral institutions is the need of the hour.

3. The Prime Minister further underscored the importance of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals aimed at ‘leaving no one behind’. He said that India is following the same principle in the ‘Reform-Perform-Transform’ strategy to move forward and inclusive development efforts that are participative.

4. With the changing situation in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said that India has adopted a ‘Self Reliant India’ initiative. Following this vision, based on its competence and dependability, India will become an important and reliable pillar of World Economy and Global Supply Chains. At a global level, India also took the initiative of establishing institutions such as the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.

5. In a recorded message at a side event on ‘Safeguarding the planet’ the Prime Minister spoke about the need to fight Climate Change in an integrated, comprehensive and holistic manner. He said that India is not only meeting Paris Agreement targets, but will be exceeding them. He emphasized that India has been inspired by its traditional ethos of living in harmony with the environment and has adopted a low carbon and climate resilient development approach. He said, for humanity to prosper, every single individual must prosper and that we should not merely see labour as a factor of production. Instead, we should focus on human dignity of every worker. Such as approach, he stated, would be the best guarantee for safeguarding our planet.

6. The Prime Minister thanked Saudi Arabia for hosting a successful Riyadh Summit and welcomed Italy as it takes over the G20 presidency in 2021. It was decided that the G20 Presidency will be held by Indonesia in 2022, India in 2023 and Brazil in 2024.

7. At the end of the Summit, a G20 Leaders’ Declaration was issued which called for coordinated global action, solidarity, and multilateral cooperation to overcome the current challenges and realize opportunities of the 21st century for all by empowering people, safeguarding the planet, and shaping new frontiers.