India – The second-most populous country in the world is rapidly industrializing. That means its GHG output has been rising inexorably, as more heavy industry serves the country’s burgeoning economy, and roads fill with cars.
India is intricately and inextricably involved with the ongoing UNFCCC negotiations leading to a post-Kyoto international agreement. It has also been working with the G8 and other parties on energy, the environment, and climate change. There was the G20 Conference on Global Warming and Clean Energy in Tokyo in March, the environment ministers’ meeting in Kobe in May, the energy ministers’ meeting in June, and the forthcoming G8 Summit in Hokkaido will address climate change with India very much at the table.
Dr. Manmohan Singh, India’s Prime Minister, yesterday unveiled his country’s National Action Plan on Climate Change. In this article from the BBC, Singh is quoted as putting solar at the center of their scheme. See also this summary from “The Guardian.” There will be eight “National Missions” that will be the key components of the plan: on Solar Energy, Enhanced Energy Efficiency, Sustainable Habitat, Conserving Water, Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem, and on creating a “Green India,” plus one on Sustainable Agriculture and a last on establishing a Strategic Knowledge Platform for Climate Change.
In his speech, Singh was poetic at times. “This is a world which we hold in trust, a world which has created and nurtured life for countless generations.” (This evokes the National Association of Evangelicals’ “Creation Care” project that I’ve mentioned a couple of times, including here.) He also said: “India has a civilizational legacy which treats Nature as a source of nurture and not as a dark force to be conquered and harnessed to human endeavour. There is a high value placed in our culture to the concept of living in harmony with Nature, recognizing the delicate threads of common destiny that hold our universe together.” Works for me!
Singh didn’t pull any punches either on where we find ourselves at present. “There is a real possibility of catastrophic disruption of the fragile life-sustaining ecological system that holds this world together. Science is now unequivocal on this assessment.” He further said that it’s time to move to renewables. “Over a period of time, we must pioneer a graduated shift from economic activity based on fossil fuels to one based on non-fossil fuels and from reliance on non-renewable and depleting sources of energy to renewable sources of energy.”
Finally, he talked about the inequities in consumption rates in the world. “Long term convergence of per capita emissions is, therefore, the only equitable basis for a global compact on climate change.” (See Galloping Consumption from March at the blog.)
To paraphrase Shelley, if India comes, can China be far behind? (See this space soon.)