No solution to world challenges without India: German envoy
Nov 24, 2021
New Delhi [India], November 25 : German Ambassador to India Walter J Lindner on Wednesday said that the Glasgow climate conference earlier this month has shown that nations need each other and added that there's no solution to world challenges without India.
Nearly 200 countries in Glasgow, Scotland, adopted an outcome document, known as the Glasgow Climate Pact. It calls on 197 countries to report their progress towards more climate ambition next year, at COP27, set to take place in Egypt. The outcome also firms up the global agreement to accelerate action on climate this decade.
However, some nations objected to the announcement of a change to the pact which softened language circulated in an earlier draft about "the phase-out of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels". As adopted, that language was revised to "phase down" coal use.
"Glasgow conference has shown that nations need each other. We can't do it by ourselves - neither rich nations nor poor ones. Every fifth person on the planet is an Indian and also a Chinese. There's no solution to world challenges without India," Lindner told ANI.
"Negotiations with India over development...for next year shows that we are willing to do a lot...The reputation of having German-based technical education is very high in India. People are looking up to Germany, expecting the best education, best technology. This we can offer," he added.
Ambassador Lindner said that Berlin has a strategic partnership with New Delhi and both countries expect special bilateral engagement in this regard.
"We have a strategic partnership with India, this is something we have with a very few countries, so not only we [Germany] expects but India also expects from Germany, the special engagement in the strategic cooperation," J Lindner told ANI.
Lindner also said that the government of both nations have been engaging regularly to keep the relations intact. "We also do this, after every two years we have government to government consultations where a whole cabinet is flying to India or India's cabinet is flying to Germany," the envoy stated.
"There is no solution to the challenges without India," he said further adding that both countries can do a lot together.
Meanwhile, bilateral relations between India and Germany are founded on common democratic principles and are marked by a high degree of trust and mutual respect. India was amongst the first countries to establish diplomatic ties with the Federal Republic of Germany after the Second World War.
India and Germany have a "Strategic Partnership" since 2001, which has been further strengthened with the Inter-Governmental Consultations (IGC) at the level of Head of Governments, the Ministry of External Affairs informed in a statement.
Leaders from both countries have also been engaging on recent issues including the Afghanistan crisis and other terrorism-related problems.