Modi govt maintains silence as Donald Trump says India's air is filthy

This is the second time Donald Trump criticised India in a pre-election debate, notwithstanding his bonhomie with PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in New Delhi on Friday refrained from officially reacting to United States President Donald Trump’s remark that the air in India was filthy.

“Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia, look at, India, it’s so filthy, the air is filthy,” Trump, who is seeking a second term in White House, said during a debate with Democratic Party’s candidate for the US presidential elections, Joe Biden. He made the remark while defending his government’s June 2017 decision to withdraw the US from the 2016 Paris Agreement.

This is the second time Trump made a critical comment about India during pre-election debates with Biden, notwithstanding his bonhomie with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He had alleged during his first debate with the former US Vice President on September 30 that the Government of India was not making public the actual number of people died of the Covid-19 in the country.

Also Read | Look at India, the air is filthy: Donald Trump during US presidential debate

The air pollution is indeed a serious issue in India, just as it is in China. The air quality in the National Capital Region – Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida – in fact, worsened to “very poor” category on Friday. But the US President apparently made the remark to once again accuse developing nations like India and China of contributing more than the US and other developed countries to global warming and climate change – an allegation dismissed by New Delhi and Beijing in the past as unscientific and politically motivated.

“The Paris accord, I took us out because we were going to have to spend trillions of dollars, and we were treated very unfairly when they put us in there, they did us a great disservice. They were going to take away our businesses,” said the US President.

The Paris Agreement set a long-term goal to limit the rise in global average temperature below two-degree centigrade above the levels that existed before the industrial revolution. The agreement required each country to determine, plan and regularly report on the contribution that it would undertake to mitigate global warming, albeit without forcing a country to set a specific target for lowering emission by a specific date.

India set a target to reach 175 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity in renewable power by 2022 as well as to achieve a 40% level of reliance on non-fossil fuel power by 2030.

Trump has since long been blaming that the 2016 deal has gone in favour of India and China but put the US in a disadvantageous position.

“I will not sacrifice millions of jobs... thousands of companies because of the Paris Accord. It is very unfair,” said Trump, even as Biden pointed it out that climate change was “an existential threat to humanity” and the US had a moral obligation to deal with it.

New Delhi did not officially react to the comment made by the US President, sticking to its officially articulated policy of not commenting on internal politics of another country.

“When you talk about numbers you don't know how many people died in China, you don't know how many people died (of Covid-19) in Russia, you don't know how many people died in India,” Trump had said at the first debate with Biden. “They don't exactly give you a straight count.”

New Delhi had not reacted to the allegation against the Modi Government then.

His comments during pre-election debates were just the latest in a series of typical “Trump Talks” that put New Delhi in a tight spot and embarrassed the Prime Minister, notwithstanding the “bromance” the two leaders displayed in public – be it at the “Howdy! Modi” conclave in Houston on September 22 or at its sequel, the “Namaste Trump” conclave, in Ahmedabad on February 24 this year.