Block’s Indicator of Sustainable Growth

India has categorically ruled out any agreement that would require  cutting carbon emissions at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December.  China is going to do the same.

The two superpowers of the developing nations will surprise with large renewable energy goals, India aiming for 10-12 per cent by 2012, and reaching to 20 per cent by 2020. China will aim for around the same targets.

In July 2009, the environment minister Jairam Ramesh was quite blunt with US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, about cutting emissions. Ramesh declared: “in 2020, it’s conceivable that we might look at a limited target. But in 2009, no way.”

In January2009,  PC Maithani, director of the Indian ministry of new and renewable energy reported that the country’s electricity generation was 557.97 tera watt hours, (1 terawatt is a billion watts). That is equivalent to only 3.2 per cent of the world total electricity consumption.

For a country with the second largest population in the world,  but having only 4.5 per cent of global carbon emissions, it’ s understandable that the World Bank believes that India could jeopardise its fight against poverty, if it agreed to emission reductions at this stage.

Sure, there is a rising Indian energy demand of 6 to 7 per cent a year. But around 45 per cent of Indian households atill have no basic electricity service. Per head of population,the average Indian’s carbon emission footprint is only 1.1 metric ton of carbon dioxide, one fourth of the world average.

If only India had been content with its previous role of being the world’s largest outsourcer of IT and other services, India’s carbon emissions in 2020 would have remained modest.  But it wanted more than that. It wanted a role similar to the one  China has as the world’s largest centre of manufacturing industry, with all the side effects of  excessive greenhouse gas and atmospheric pollution.

India wants to increase its small renewable energy sector at present confined to some PV solar, biomass and biogas plants, withthe aim of a giant leap forward to the front ranks of the world solar industry.

As a tropical country deficient in oil and gas, but with a great deal of sunlight, the daily average of solar energy incident over the Indian countryside varies from 4.7 kilowatt hour per square metre. In other words, it is sunny for most days in the year, ideal for solar energy.

To date, India has around 1.4 million solar PV (photovoltaic)  systems, installed largely for off grid and agricultural pumping applications, with about 300 MW of energy.

The national solar mission is to add 20 GW (20,000 MW) of solar  capacity by 2020 at a cost of over US$19 billion. By 2030, India wants to increase its solar energy capacity to 100 GW, and to double that to 200 GW by 2050. A very ambitious goal by any standard.

There will be in effect a tax on fossil fuels, mainly coal. Because of the poverty in the agricultural sector, the program calls for solar power cost reduction to achieve grid tariff parity by 2020. And then to achieve parity with coal based power plants by 2030.

Because of the large manufacturing base in the country, with the conglomerates Reliance and Tata wanting a large role in renewables, and particularly in solar energy, the Indian plan is to aim to have installed 4-5 GW of solar  manufacturing capacity by 2017.

India and China have already called for developed nations to provide 1 per cent of their GDP per annum to developing countries for energy renewal, and to also provide clean energy technology. They also want the developed nations to reduce their carbon emissions by 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020.

There is a role for developed nations to play a large role in assisting developing countries become more carbon neutral. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown suggested the richer countries put in US$100 billion, while UN Climate Change chief Yvo de Boer has suggested $10 billion.

De Boer now says (August 12 2009) that if the hard work of carbon reduction isn’t carried out soon, “fighting climate change will cost a phenomenal amount of money” He estimates this as $300 billion a year from 2020 onward.

Gaia Vince of the Guardian (August 11 2009) says that relying on the developed countries to pay for India’s ambitious solar expansion plans instead of going ahead and paying for it from India’s own resources is a big mistake. After all, India originally intended to pay for it from government funds.

Vince says in the next three years, India will have increased its coal capacity by 79 GW, equivalent to the entire UK power sector. “All countries must accept emissions caps and must help pay for clean technologies.”

The hard reality is that Europe and America and the other developed countries will generously contribute, but India and the other developing nations must do a lot of the heavy lifting themselves.