US Elections 2020: Trump slammed for preaching to India on climate change during debate

US President made an uncalled attack at its ally, India and called it’s climate “filthy” during the final face-off with Joe Biden at Nashville on October 23. Few minutes before the 90 minute debate was expected to wrap up, moderator Kristen Welker talked about the environmental crisis especially when the US President has denied science, slammed teenage activist Greta Thunberg and even abandoned the Paris Climate Accord of 2015.

Opposing science, yet again, Trump talked about how the air and water are “clean” in the United States and mentioned that he “loves environment”. Even though experts across the globe have continuously warned about the degrading climate,  Trump made an unverified claim saying that the US has the “best Carbon emission numbers that we’ve had in 35 years” and added that nation is “working very well”. 

 It was after this that the US President went on to compare the United States with other nations and called their climate “filthy” including India. Trump even justified pulling America out of the climate accord by saying that the country would have to spend “trillions of dollars” and the US was “treated unfairly”.

Trump said, “Look at China, how filthy it is! Look at Russia. Look at India -- It's filthy!”

"I will not sacrifice tens of millions of jobs, thousands and thousands of companies because of the Paris Accord.”

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India makes global effort on climate change

However, Trump's unproven remarks came when Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought together 130 nations to start urgent action on climate change. In February, this year, India partnered with Norway to work on pressurising other nations for action on environmental action along with laying emphasising that promised funds to the developing world should be followed up. 

Union Environment Minister Prakash Jaavdekar had said at the time that “On climate change, we have stressed that finances, which were promised to the developing world and have not come in the last 10 years, needs to be followed up. The amount stands at USD 1 trillion. All countries should create a buzz around it. So we have decided to partner in progress.” Even the Norwegian minister had lauded India for showing “bold action” on climate.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among many other initiatives to tackle climate crisis has formed two alliances, solar alliance and Climate Disaster Resilience Initiative (CDRI). He has repeatedly stressed the need for stringent action to deal with the issue of climate change making India an active participant on the global level.

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