UK and India to work closely on global issues including COP26, says acting British envoy

ACTING British High Commissioner to India Jan Thompson on Monday (14) expressed pleasure over Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually joining the recently held G7 Summit in the UK and said the host nation will continue to work closely with the Asian power on global issues, including on the path to COP26 (The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in November this year) and beyond.

“We are delighted Prime Minister Modi joined the UK-hosted G7 Summit virtually, participating in discussions on health, climate and open societies. Together with India, all participants signed the Open Societies Statement that reaffirmed our shared beliefs in democratic values,” Thompson said. The UK invited India as one of the guest nations to the summit which was held in Cornwall between June 11 and 13.

Extinction Rebellion environmental activists attach a banner calling on G7 leaders to act on climate change on the beach in St Ives, Cornwall during the G7 summit on June 13, 2021.(Photo by DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP via Getty Images)

Thompson noted that the G7 nations agreed concrete action to better global health and vowed to ensure the global devastation caused by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic never gets repeated. She reiterated the UK’s announcement of donating 100 million Covid-19 vaccine doses within the next year.

“G7 leaders also launched a new partnership on infrastructure investment to propel green economic growth and make the world fairer and more prosperous,” she said, adding: “We will continue to work closely with India as a joint force for good on these global issues, including on the path to COP26 and beyond.”

At the summit, the G7 countries agreed upon the ‘Carbis Bay Declaration’, a statement which set out a series of concrete commitments to prevent repetition of the human and economic devastation caused by the pandemic.

Modi also touched upon the key issue of climate during his address. He spoke at three sessions at the summit on the theme ‘Building Back Better’. His participation was based on three broad tracks in building back better, stronger, together and greener, he said in a press briefing on Sunday (13). The tracks were global health, vaccines and recovery from the pandemic; environmental and climate change and open societies and open economies – a senior Ministry of External Affairs official in India said on Sunday.

With inputs from India News Network