• My guest today is a Walk the Talk favourite of all time, in fact, an all-weather friend of Walk the Talk, if I may call you that, Montek?

You certainly may.

• The weather's what's been getting you excited these days.

That's true. Climate, rather than the weather.

• What has been happening? Montek Singh Ahluwalia ko gussa kyun aata hai? You are known to be one of the coolest, calmest customers in the policy machine.

Well, if you are referring to the news reports on my views on the UNDP report, actually I think maybe the press exaggerated the extent of my anger.

• When was the last time you had a headline saying 'Montek rubbishes something'.

Well, that's true. That was the first time I got that. I guess because they were a little surprised that on an important issue like that, I was releasing the report but I did tell them in advance that I did not agree on one of the key elements. I think I also said that it was a good report. It has a lot of very interesting things but, of course, the press only picked up the things that are different and newsy.

• But why?

Well, the key issue I raised was basically that climate change is a very important issue. Let's be clear about that. It's not a conspiracy that someone else is thrusting on us. There is a huge amount of empirical evidence now that all the carbon burning that has been going on for 200 years, mainly in the western world, has led to an accumulation of greenhouse gases, and that raises the temperature. What is now becoming clear is the extent to which that has happened and the continuing rate at which we are adding to these emissions is going to raise temperature around the world maybe by two degrees Centigrade, maybe more. And actually that can have very disastrous consequences. Glaciers can melt, we have seen some of that in the Himalayas, sea levels rise, monsoons become uncertain, crops go down. It's a very important issue.

... contd.