Climate change is huge threat: PM Modi in Davos

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that climate change is a huge threat to the world right now.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was delivering the keynote address at the opening session of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.

"Climate change is a huge threat right now, Snow in the Arctic is melting, many islands are sinking or are about to sink," Prime Minister Modi pointed out.

"Extreme cold, hot, floods, drought- the effect of extreme weather is increasing day by day. Everybody says that carbon emission should be reduced, but how many people and countries are there who are ready to help developing countries and societies to get useful technology," Prime Minister Modi asked.

He also outlined the efforts India is making to tackle the menace of climate change.

"My government has put a very big goal before Indians to protect the environment and to fight climate change- we have set a target to produce 175GW of renewable energy by 2022. We have achieved one-third of this goal in the last three years by producing 60 GW renewable energy," Prime Minister Modi said.

He also said that in 2016, India and France envisaged an international treaty-based organisation.

"This revolutionary step has now become a reality with the formation of International Solar Alliance," Prime Minister Modi said.

Earlier, he also talked about the importance of data in today's era.

"Today, data is a real wealth and it is being said that whoever acquires and controls the data will have hegemony in the future. The global flow of data is creating big opportunities as well as challenges," Prime Minister Modi said.

He added that technology-driven transformation has been deeply affecting people's way of thinking, working, international groups, politics, and economy.