New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday took stock of extensive efforts that have recently been undertaken by both their countries to deepen cooperation in a number of areas, even as they discussed subjects like supply chain resilience, climate finance, multilateral engagement, global debt vulnerabilities, anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism.
These issues came up for discussion during the 9th meeting of India-US Economic and Financial Partnership (EFP).
“Today’s meeting featured a dedicated session on climate finance for the second time under the Economic and Financial Partnership, reflecting our respective commitments to drive urgent progress in combating climate change by collaborating closely on the shared goal of scaling up and mobilising climate finance to meet our ambitious climate goals.
“We shared views on the re-energised global efforts to increase climate ambition as well as our respective domestic efforts to meet our publicly expressed climate goals. We agreed that public finance, when paired with enabling policies, can promote private finance. We also noted the importance of the evolving role of the multilateral development banks (MDBs) to better address global challenges, including climate change,” a joint statement issued by both the sides after the meeting, said.
“We acknowledge the developed country goal to jointly mobilise $100 billion every year till 2025 from public and private sources for developing countries, in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation. We also agree to work together in arriving at a new collective quantified goal from a floor of $100 billion annually for the post 2025 period, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries.
“We agreed that India and the US should work together with partners to pursue a broad mix of public and private financing to facilitate India’s energy transition in line with its nationally determined climate goals and capabilities. We also look forward to continuing the discussion of climate-aligned finance under the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group with US as the co-chair and India holding the G20 Presidency next year,” the statement added.
In the context of the conflict in Ukraine, both the sides discussed the current headwinds to the global macroeconomic outlook including increased commodity and energy prices as well as supply side disruptions.
“We re-emphasised our commitment to the central role of multilateral cooperation in addressing these global macroeconomic challenges. Both sides affirmed their commitment to debt sustainability, transparency in bilateral lending and coordinating closely on extending fair and equal debt treatment to countries facing debt distress. We reiterated our commitment to step up our efforts to implement the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatment in a predictable, timely, orderly and coordinated manner. We plan to continue engaging on these and other global economic issues both multilaterally and bilaterally. India and the United States look forward to continued collaboration to meet the most pressing global challenges under India’s G20 Presidency commencing December this year. The United States warmly welcomes India’s upcoming leadership role and stands ready to support India in hosting a successful and productive year,” the statement said.
–IANS