(Photo of solar energy in rural India from Flickr and and the barefoot photographers of Tilinia)
News Update 3: India, whose economy is growing 8-9% a year, has unveiled its National Action Plan to deal with global warming. It will focus on renewable energy, efficiency and research on green technology. More specifically, the plan covers solar energy, water conservation and energy efficiency, as well as sustainable agriculture, the Himalayan ecosystem and habitat. But it does not set a target for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. India says it has a right to lift its people out of poverty, as industrial nations did while they poured GHG into the atmosphere -- and that it has low per-capita carbon emissions, at 1.2 tons, compared with the United States’ 20.6 tons (2004 data). India’s power is 60% generated by coal, with plans for new plants in the next 5 years that will generate 70,000 more megawatts. Emissions have been growing about 2-3% a year, though the country is responsible for only 4% of the world’s GHG. (Source: Thomson Reuters)
1 comment:
What an interesting ethical dilemma--Does a nation have the moral authority and therefore the international right to lift one's people out of poverty when that "right" hinders global stability and contributes to a climatological process that will literally drown several small island states and destroy delta communities like neighboring Bangladesh? This is a hard moral and ethical discussion to have and the consequences are serious--making it an extremely important conversation for many of us to have--requiring the input of many voices and a lot of creativity.
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