Climate News Roundup — India edition
Lurking in the shadows of U.S. and Chinese emissions is India:
India Says Emissions Will Fall by 25 Pct by 2020 - Reuters. The author of this article is confused, or perhaps was simply misled by Ghosh, India’s environment secretary, who is quoted saying, “Our modelling approaches show the effect of many of our policies taken together that the year 2020 will result in a more than a 25 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions.”
Ghosh has almost certainly neglected to add “relative to projected growth” (or possibly in Bush-esque fashion the single word “intensity“ was omitted by Ghosh or the reporter). India’s emissions in 2020 will certainly be considerably higher than they are today (assuming they continue rejecting mandatory targets), as they are growing rapidly and relying heavily on their abundant coal resources.
Report: India to reject proposal at G-8 summit to cut greenhouse gases - International Herald Tribune. This second story confirms the first one is wrong. Ghosh is quoted here opposing greenhouse gas limits: “Legally mandated measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are likely to have significant adverse impacts on GDP growth of developing countries, including India.” Obviously, if India were going to achieve a 25% reduction in absolute emissions by 2020, they would not oppose mandated emissions targets.
The tragedy of India’s intransigence is that, as Ghosh says in the first article, “Climate change impacts will largely affect the poor and their livelihoods and lives will be at risk.”
