US President Barack Obama today supported India's massive energy needs necessary for its economic growth to address the challenges of poverty, while stressing on the need to pass on clean coal technologies to fight climate change. "In order to grow the economy, we have got to have energy.

In fact, there are countries like India where it is even more desperate," Obama said in his address to the National Governors Association at the White House. "They (Indians) do not have electricity," he said, adding that India needs access to energy in order to develop.

"And if we are not giving them options, if the only message we have for them is, 'Stay poor,' the we are not going to solve the problem," Obama said. Observing that this is not an either/or issue, Obama said: "We have got to grow the economy, which means we have got to produce energy and we've got to deal with climate change.

"The good news is that technology and research and development are accelerating rapidly, and because of the Paris agreement this would be going to accelerate progress even more," he said.