India announced that it would slow the growth of the nation's green house gas emissions by 2020. India is focused more on improving energy efficiency rather than accepting limits on total emissions. The Indian government was previously hesitant to take any action like this before because they thought it would hinder the growth of the economy. But, I think it is important that the Indian government is taking control and showing leadership qualities to their citizens. Hopefully this sets a model for the rest of the country and future government. India has a huge population and is continuing to grow at an incredibly fast rate, and they are well on their way to polluting more and more each year. It currently ranks fifth GLOBALLY in goverall emissions and will continue to go up as the economy grows (and it will). Although their promise to slow the growth of GHG emissions, the emissions will go up, just at a slower rate. However, the officials say that there is a window open for further improvements. This appears to just be a first step.
I think this is important because India is among the fastest growing countries and their emissions are growing with them. Any effort to try and slow this growth is beneficial, in my opinion. Although I think more should and can be done, for now at least this step shows that India is concerned.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
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5 comments:
I was listening to NPR the other day and heard something similar talking about China and it's "completely cutting off all emissions by 2020" but in fine print, it's solely reducing it. At least there's some progress being made.
I think it's good that India is actually taking a step toward slowing green house gas emissions, but I don't think it's enough. According to this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/world/asia/04india.html), India's only promising to cut its "carbon intensity" by 20 to 25% of 2005 levels by 2020. Since India's economy is growing rapidly, I don't think this will even slow the growth of green house gas emissions. Carbon intensity refers to "the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of economic output." So as India's economic output increases rapidly, it's very likely that the amount of green house gases they produce will continue to increase rapidly. China seems to be taking a larger step by promising to cut its carbon intensity by 40 to 45% by 2020. I still feel that both countries need to take more drastic measures to cut green house gas emissions.
I agree with Sarah in that India is going to have one heck of a time lowering their emissions in a country where both their economic output and population size are increasing rapidly. I think the biggest issue with this combination is "Tragedy of the Commons": each person in this growing population does tiny things to pollute their environment which lead to huge Carbon dioxide emissions. While setting standards will undeniably help, getting the population of India to support the green revolution is a much more daunting task.
This is great news!! Now we need to get our OWN government on the bandwagon.
Its pathetic that we were one of the only developed countries that didn't sign the Kyoto Protocol.
I agree with Sarah and Riley on how India's population is growing at such a fast rate. Their growth rate is 1.58% based off the CIA World Factbook. Based off Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs India has 1,173,730,000 people in December 12, 2009. With this many people growing at such a high rate, it would be very difficult to have a national rule on slowing green house gas emissions. I believe that getting the entire nation to help cut green house gas emissions would be very difficult. I think if more people were educated on why we should cut the green house gas emissions. I believe if people knew why it would help the world as a whole and how it greatly helps people in the future they might realize the importance of reducing green house gas emissions and saving resources as a whole.
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