Earth Equity News

India Unveils Climate Plan Emphasizing Renewables. By Krittivas Mukherjee, Reuters, June 30, 2008. "India unveiled on Monday a national plan to deal with the threat of global warming, focusing on renewable energy for sustainable development while refusing to commit to any emission targets that risk slowing economic growth. The National Action Plan identified harnessing renewable energy, such as solar power, and energy efficiency as central to India's fight against global warming and said a climate change fund would be set up to research 'green' technologies... In spite of its pledge to clean technology, coal remains the backbone of India's power sector -- accounting for about 60 percent of generation -- with the government planning to add some 70,000 megawatts in the next five years... India says it must use more energy to lift its population from poverty and that its per-capita emissions are a fraction of those in rich nations, which have burnt fossil fuels unhindered since the industrial revolution. India's per-capita emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, were 1.2 tons in 2004, compared with 20.6 tons for the United States for the same year, according to U.N. data. India, whose economy has grown by 8-9 percent annually in recent years, contributes around 4 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. 'Despite our development imperatives, our per capita GHG emissions will not exceed the per capita GHG emissions of the developed industrialized countries, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said."