Climate change one of the biggest threats to global prosperity and stability: British High Commissioner

Speaking about shared interest of India and UK, Asquith said: "We also share a common conviction that climate change is one of the biggest threats to global prosperity and stability.  We recognise that it is in our own interest to prevent dangerous climate change.  Both our nations are committed to the Paris Agreement as a means to galvanise global action on climate change."

Referring to Kolkata, he said: "The city is growing at a fast pace, and like the state and the nation as a whole, it requires secure and sustainable supplies of energy to power that growth.  Achieving secure and sustainable energy is at the heart of the UK’s collaboration with India on policy, innovation and business."

"So I’m delighted to have the opportunity that this conclave provides to talk for a few minutes about our shared purpose, our common challenges and our amazing capacity for collaboration in this area" he added.

Asquith said: "We both believe that this is not just the right thing to do, but also the smart economic thing to do.   We both recognise the commercial opportunities that can be realised in the low carbon economy.  The UK low-carbon sector alone is worth over £46 billion across more than 90,000 businesses.  It employs more than 238,500 full time workers directly and indirectly supports many more."

"We are both taking action.  In the UK we admire the stretching targets that India has set to bring its renewable energy capacity up to 175GW by 2022.  And we’re driving action ourselves in the UK to decarbonise our economy.  We are setting concrete carbon budgets in law to help us reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050," the British High Commissioner added.