David Letterman, a renowned American TV talk show host, who is running his special documentary series – Years of Living Dangerously on Natioanal Geographic, and is about to get his interview aired with Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon, met Power Minister Piyush Goyal. Talking about climate change and the role India can play in reducing carbon footprint, Goyal outlined India’s energy needs and the use of coal and renewable sources to address them. “Of course we have to use coal…the renewable energy sources will supplement the supply from coal,” Goyal said.
Goyal said that asking India to limit the use of coal is not justified, least from the developed nations who are blatantly wasting energy. Citing America’s example, Goyal said: “In New York lights are on the whole night, there are offices where not a single person is working, but all lights are on.” He also took the example of US president’s residence. “The street lights at the White House are lit all the day, why? And we are being told not to use coal.”
The snippets of the show were continuously being aired at National Geographic. PM Modi, as seen in the short clip, said that if the world helps him with technology, he will be the first person to “switch over to clean energy completely”. PM discussed India’s position and vision to help fight climate change with Letterman. “If the world helps me with technology, helps me with resources, I will be the very first person to switch over to clean energy completely,” Modi said in a clip aired by during the episode.
Letterman also held conversations with other key government officials, besides travelling to villages where 300 million people live without power, to understand whether India will continue to use dirty fossils fuels like coal, or will it be able to lead the way with the renewable energy programme. Letterman expressed his satisfaction after interviewing Modi. “I don’t know what that was, but thank you. It’s one of those things that I would like to do again. I was hoping he would ask me to sleep over. I have nothing but questions for this man,” said Letterman.