London: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his British counterpart David Cameron stressed that addressing climate change and promoting secure, affordable and sustainable supplies of energy are shared strategic priorities for both nations.
They noted with appreciation the strong history of collaboration between the two countries in support of these aims and committed to strengthen bilateral cooperation to this end.
Both leaders pledged work together for an ambitious and comprehensive Agreement under the UNFCCC at the Paris Climate Conference in December 2015 that would be applicable to all.
The two Prime Ministers recognised the importance of building trust amongst parties to the UNFCCC and support the inclusion within the Paris Agreement of a transparency framework, reflecting the need for all parties to track and report progress regularly of both action and support as appropriate towards achieving their efforts, which would serve to demonstrate that all parties are implementing their respective efforts.
They welcomed the fact that 159 countries have submitted intended nationally determined contributions to the Paris Agreement, covering over 88 percent of global emissions and supported global stock takes, covering both action and support, periodically in order to achieve the objective of the Convention.
Both leaders recognised the need for the Paris Agreement to give a clear signal to citizens, businesses and investors on the long-term direction of travel to foster innovation and research and development to make clean energy more affordable.
They emphasised the importance of climate finance and of developed countries honouring their commitment to mobilise jointly US $100billion a year by 2020 from a wide variety of sources, both public and private, in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation.
UK and India recognised the crucial role of predictable and enhanced public and private climate finance, to support mitigation and adaptation actions in developing countries. They also recognised the role of climate finance in helping the deployment and development of environmentally sound technologies and research and development addressing barriers to bring about a shift in investment to help achieve the objective of the Convention.
The two Prime Ministers noted our partnership on climate resilience, which includes UK support for India’s National and State Action Plans for Climate Change. This programme will help reduce the climate risks to India’s highly vulnerable population, strengthen adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change and generate lessons from which other countries can learn.
Both leaders were pleased to note that successes from the UK India partnership on climate change and energy would be showcased at the India Pavilion in Paris.
They also recognised the vital role youth can play in tackling climate change and shared a vision for co-operation between youth climate networks in both countries to develop innovative solutions to common climate challenges.
The two Prime Ministers recognised the importance of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in providing a comprehensive assessment of climate change based on available science.
They highlighted the importance of an increased focus on solutions to climate change and agreed to work together to support the Indian and UK Co-Chairs of IPCC Working Group III as they lead the work on assessing options for mitigating climate change in the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Cycle.
The two Prime Ministers committed to strengthen the existing energy partnership between the UK and India. Looking ahead, they agreed their Ministers should meet for regular summits to share views and explore opportunities for bilateral cooperation on strategic priorities as well as push forward collaboration across the breadth of the energy partnership, including joint collaboration on research, development, demonstration and eventual deployment of clean technology and renewables, gas and nuclear.
Under this broad framework of cooperation, Prime Minister Cameron and Prime Minister Modi welcomed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen energy cooperation between the two countries building on existing successes and promoting closer future collaboration in areas such as electricity market reform, energy efficiency, offshore wind, solar power, smart grids, energy storage, and off-grid renewable energy services.
They also welcomed the extension of the collaboration between the UK and India on strategic energy planning.
The two Prime Ministers welcomed the successful conclusion of negotiations on a bilateral Civil Nuclear Co-operation Agreement providing a framework for further co-operation, and announced the signing of a MoU between the UK and the Indian Department for Atomic Energy to encourage joint training and experience sharing on Civil Nuclear with the Indian Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership.
They reaffirmed the importance of global collaboration on research and development in finding innovative solutions and their applications to facilitate the expansion and reduce the costs of clean energy. They agreed to work closely together on initiatives that would enhance and better co-ordinate global efforts to this end.
Prime Minister Cameron expressed UK support for India’s initiative for an international solar alliance for the promotion of solar technologies and applications.
The two Prime Ministers announced £10 million of joint funding from the Research Councils UK and Indian Department of Science and Technology for new joint renewable energy research centres, bringing the total value of the Indo-UK clean energy research programme to £60 million. They welcomed the growing role of the private sector in their countries in channelling investments in the clean energy space, which would catalyse innovation and accelerate the pace of deployment of breakthrough technologies.
Prime Minister Modi highlighted the need for large scale, low cost, long term finance to deliver India’s renewable energy ambitions, and noted the potential role that the City of London could play in leveraging international capital towards this end.
Prime Minister Cameron announced the UK Climate Investment venture with the Green Investment Bank, which will invest up to a total of £200 million of UK climate finance in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in India and Africa.
Prime Minister Cameron also announced UK funding for the India Innovation Lab for Green Finance, an independent Indian initiative endorsed by the Government of India, to bring together the private and public sectors to find innovative solutions to the barriers to clean energy finance in India.
The two Prime Ministers reaffirmed the importance of sharing skills and expertise to deliver secure, affordable and sustainable energy for all. Prime Minister Cameron announced a £10 million five-year programme of Technical Assistance to support national and state-level reforms in India’s power sector.
Prime Minister Cameron also announced a new Chevening Fellowship Scheme for clean energy and climate change, which over three years will bring the future leaders of India’s energy sector and in the field of climate change to the UK to study and build partnerships.
The two Prime Ministers highlighted the strong Indo-UK commercial collaboration on energy, which plays a key role in job and revenue generation in both economies. In particular they welcomed Lightsource’s plans to invest £2 billion in India, building over 3 GW of solar electricity infrastructure including through a partnership with Srei Infrastructure Finance Limited, and the recent announcement that UK technology company Intelligent Energy has signed an agreement to acquire the energy management business of Indian company GTL to provide efficient, clean and economical energy to 27,400 telecoms towers in India, with a total contract value of £1.2 billion over ten years.
They agreed to support UK and Indian companies operating in both countries recognising that this was important for sharing expertise and experience on how well functioning energy and gas markets can promote energy security and economic growth as well as delivering a cost-effective low carbon transition.
They emphasised the importance and mutual benefit of continuing to work together in the areas of energy and climate change to enhance the prosperity of both nations.
ANI