{"id":6485,"date":"2015-10-27T08:07:31","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T08:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6485"},"modified":"2015-10-27T08:07:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T08:07:31","slug":"carbon-emissions-and-human-development-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/10\/27\/carbon-emissions-and-human-development-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Carbon emissions and human development in India"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was being gloomy in a meeting the other day about the dismal prospects for COP21<\/a> when someone said the outcome will depend on what David Cameron does.<\/p>\n

That cannot be right in any tangible sense as our carbon emissions are so puny. \u00a0There is moral leadership to be provided or squandered, of course, but that's another issue. \u00a0I said I was keeping an eye on the Indian middle class. \u00a0How apt, then, to find a recent Economist piece on that very subject: India and the Environment<\/a>: catching up with China.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here's the issue:<\/p>\n

\"Given India\u2019s size and population (1.3 billion), its emissions of carbon dioxide are in relative terms still tiny. \u00a0At 1.6 tonnes of carbon per person each year, they are roughly the same as China\u2019s per-head emissions in 1980, when that country dived into economic reforms. \u00a0Now India\u2019s prime minister\u00a0...\u00a0has set India a target of expanding GDP by 8% a year. \u00a0If it comes close to meeting that target, emissions will soar, just as China\u2019s have done. Today, Chinese emissions per head are four times those in India.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The development problems India faces are huge. \u00a0As the Economist summarises\u00a0it:<\/p>\n

\"The country has more poor people than anywhere else in the world: 230m living on $1.90 a day or less \u2013 the World Bank\u2019s definition of extreme poverty. \u00a0Almost half of rural households, or 250m-300m people, have no electricity.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

India has refused (in advance of COP21) to promise to cap its emissions. \u00a0This understandable because, as the Economist notes,\u00a0\"to cap emissions would be to deny many Indians the chance to better their hard lives<\/em>\", adding that, for the poor \"growth is essential<\/em>\", even though\u00a0carbon comes with it. \u00a0After all, bettering hard lives is what development is all about; that is, as Amartya Sen said, giving people the chance to\u00a0live lives they have reason to value.<\/p>\n

So, how will all this play out? \u00a0How carbon intense will this development be? \u00a0India itself has promised (for the COP)\u00a0that its carbon intensity<\/a> (carbon emissions per $\u00a0of GDP) will\u00a0fall by a third before 2030. \u00a0The Economist says that this depends on the policies that India adopts, and how well these are carried through, adding ...<\/p>\n

\"If there is reason to be optimistic, it is that the environment matters to Indians themselves. \u00a0Thirteen of the world\u2019s 20 most-polluted cities are in the subcontinent. \u00a0Smoke from cooking with wood or dung in Indian homes may be responsible for 500,000 early deaths a year, mostly of women and children. \u00a0Climate change could do grave harm to India. \u00a0Some two-thirds of its agriculture depends on the monsoon, which may become less reliable as a result of global warming. \u00a0Some Himalayan glaciers are retreating, sending less water to rivers that feed hundreds of millions of people downstream. \u00a0A quarter of Indians live near coasts that are vulnerable to sea-level rises. \u00a0Many countries suffer one or more of these problems. Few have all of them. So while Indians need growth, they cannot ignore the consequences of it.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article is worth reading for its clear setting out of the utter\u00a0complexity of this carbon v development issue \u2013 something being played out in a lot of countries \u2013 including economically developed ones such as the UK. \u00a0Anyone who thinks any of this is amenable to simple solutions is clearly simple-minded and\/or ill-informed, and I hope that articles such as this are being read and used by those involved in the global learning business to help their students see more clearly into the fog of issues.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was being gloomy in a meeting the other day about the dismal prospects for COP21 when someone said the outcome will depend on what David Cameron does. That cannot be right in any tangible sense as our carbon emissions...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}