The Indian government says the country’s carbon dioxide emissions will grow three to five times by 2031 as its economy expands and its population continues to soar from 1 billion to 1.5 billion people.
Government projections say CO2 emissions will increase from 1.4 billion tons last year to between 4 billion and 7.3 billion tons annually by 2031. India now produces about 5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.
Indian officials have rejected assertions by developed countries that India needs to rein its CO2 emissions, saying the country has the right to improve its standard of living and that per-capita emissions — expected to double by 2031 — will still remain comparatively low.
“Even with very aggressive GDP growth,” said Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, “India’s per capita emissions will be well below developed country averages.”
That contention offers little solace to negotiators hoping to forge a climate treaty in Copenhagen this December, as the U.S. and some other developed nations have expressed an unwillingness to sharply curb CO2 emissions if developing countries such as India and China make no commitment to rein in theirs.
Appearing courtesy of Yale Environment 360.
[photo credit: Flickr]
1 comment
I don’t think the fact that India’s emissions are due to triple by 2030 should prevent us from working on decreasing our own.
Let’s review the facts :
– America’s population : 300 million people (4.5 percent of 6.7 billion) account for between a quarter and a fifth of total GHG emissions.
– India’s population : 1 billion ( 15 percent of the total) account for 5 percent of total GHG emissions.
Do you think this is fair ? I don’t. (I could have taken the EU emissions but didn’t have the amount of emissions…)
Now, as I said in a previous comment: Indian engineers are fantastic, meanwhile the country is threatened in a most important way by the melting of the Himalayan snows as it is their raintower (and China’s too, and many other countries as well).
Additionally : how could India’s emissions rise ? With which fossil fuels ? We all know oil and gas are due to become more expensive as they peak. This will be huge incentives for alternatives.
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