From old age to the Vedas: Watch Narendra Modi’s changing views on climate change
“It is not a question of which way I go. I will go with the future generations.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said India was committed to protecting the climate, irrespective of the 2015 Paris Agreement. His comments came when he was asked about the United States’s move to withdraw from the climate deal. When asked whether he would side with the US or the other nations in the Paris deal, he said, “It is not a question of which way I go. I will go with the future generations.”
When asked by the journalist Megan Kelly, about his remark on its being “criminal” to not act on climate change, Modi said that the media was trying to “sensationalise” things, before going on to refer to, but naturally, the Vedas.
“I would put it very simply,” he said. “I am simply talking about the aspirations or the dreams new India has for itself.” He then explained that the Vedas, “the knowledge bank of India” from about 5,000 years ago, talked about protection of the environment.
The prime minister’s views on climate change have consistently changed over the past couple of years. When asked by students about it at a teachers’ day event in 2014, Modi had gone off on a tangent, rambling on about ageing and folklore instead of addressing the matter head on.
“Climate change – is this terminology correct?” he had said. “The reality is that in our family, some people are old. They say this time the weather is colder. And people’s ability to bear cold becomes less. We should also ask is this climate change or have we changed. We have battled against nature. We should love nature instead of fight it.”
Two years later, the PM veered away from the philosophical. When David Letterman visited India for a documentary on climate change, the talk show host’s questions appear to have got a more direct response. This was appropriate considering Modi had made India the spearhead of the International Solar Alliance, an effort to move to renewable energy.
When asked if there was a way “300-400 million without electricity can go right to solar”, Modi had said, “If the world helps me with technology, helps me with resources, I will be the very first person to switch over to clean energy completely,”
