Emissions From India Will Increase, Official Says
by Coral Davenport
Sept. 24, 2014 - In a blow to American hopes of reaching an international deal to fight global warming, India's new environment minister said Wednesday that his country would not offer a plan to cut its greenhouse gas emissions ahead of a climate summit next year in Paris.
The minister, Prakash Javadekar, said in an interview that his government's first priority was to alleviate poverty and improve the nation's economy.  He said that would necessarily involve an increase in emissions, through new coal-powered electricity and transportation.  He placed responsibility for what scientists call a coming climate crisis on the United States, the world's largest historic greenhouse gas polluter.  He dismissed the idea that India would make cuts to carbon emissions.
"What cuts?" Mr. Javadekar said.  "That's for more developed countries.  The moral principle of historic responsibility cannot be washed away."  Mr. Javadekar was referring to an argument frequently made by developing economies -- that developed economies, chiefly the United States, which spent the last century building their economies while pumping warming emissions into the atmosphere -- bear the greatest responsibility for cutting pollution.
Mr. Javadekar said that government agencies in New Delhi were preparing plans for India's domestic actions on climate change, but he said they would lead only to a lower rate of increase in carbon emissions.  It would be at least 30 years, he said, before India would likely see a downturn.
"India's first task is eradication of poverty," Mr. Javadekar said, speaking in a New York hotel suite a day after a United Nations climate summit.  “20% of our population doesn't have access to electricity, and that's our top priority.  We will grow faster, and our emissions will rise."
India is the world's 3rd-largest carbon polluter, behind China and the United States.  Mr. Javadekar's comments are a first indication of the direction of the environmental policies of the new prime minister, Narendra Modi, the author of a 2011 e-book, "A Convenient Action."  Although the book, a response to the movie "An Inconvenient Truth," presents the moral case for action on climate change, Mr. Javadekar said that coal, the world's top source of carbon pollution, would provide more than half of India's power for the foreseeable future.
In coming decades, as India works to provide access to electricity to more than 300 million people, its emissions are projected to double, surpassing those of the United States and China.
As President Obama and Chinese leaders have signaled that they intend to enact policies to decrease their emissions levels in the coming years, cooperation from India on a global climate treaty is crucial.  Without India, it will be more difficult to reach a lasting agreement.
As demand for electricity surges in India, Mr. Modi has said he plans to tackle climate change by increasing renewable power sources like wind and solar -- an effort that has won applause from international environmental groups.  Mr. Javadekar said his government was also focusing on increasing investment in railways and public transport, in order to slow the growth in demand for cars.
In addition, he said the Modi administration was working on efforts to replant forests and create new wildlife refuge areas to protect tigers.  "The new motto is, development without destruction," Mr. Javadekar said.
A number of recent scientific reports have concluded that carbon emissions must peak within the next few years, and then decline, if the global atmosphere is to avoid an average temperature increase of 2°C, a tipping point at which scientists project an unavoidable future of rising sea levels, increased droughts and flooding and other catastrophic impacts.
Mr. Obama has pushed for policies to lower emissions in the United States.  On Tuesday, the vice prime minister of China, Zhang Gaoli, said his country would try to reach a peak level of emissions "as soon as possible.”
 www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/world/asia/25climate.html?_r=1