'Time to practice and not to preach,' PM Modi's message at UN Climate Summit

New York: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Monday, addressed the United Nations summit on climate change and said that India believes in practicing than preaching.

PM Modi hoped that India could be an inspiration to the world on the ban of single-use plastics.

He further said that time for talking was over and the world needs to act now.

PM Modi said, "On this year's India's Independence Day, we called for a mass movement to have freedom from single-use plastic. I hope that this will raise awareness against the usage of single-use plastic, at a global level."

Acting on the Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees celsius, he said that India has a capacity of 4GW and the country has set a target of adding 100 GW of solar power by 2022.

Talking about protecting natural resources, PM Modi said, "We have provided clean cooking gas connections to millions of families. We have started 'Jal Jeevan' mission for water resource development, water conservation and rainwater harvesting."

The Climate Action Summit will see leaders make national statements, followed by statements of coalitions and national statements again.