Radical departure from old ways for clean and safe future
BY INDIRA KHAN
NEW DELHI – Everyone remembers where they were when men landed on the moon, when the Berlin wall came down and when Obama won the election. In the years to come, what happened today in New Delhi will become one such indelible moment for a nation of 1.3 billion.
In a radical departure from the status quo and stated policy, India’s re-appointed Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh used his first nationally-televised address to announce an end to a century of dependence on fossil fuels.
“The people of the world’s largest democracy cannot be complacent. Four years of business-as-usual has grown India’s economy, but four more years of these policies would have unthinkable results for India and the rest of the world.”
Referring to the 2015 ‘tipping point’ when global temperature rise is expected to reach the point of no return, Dr. Singh asserted, “We have to act now. Six years from now we’ll only be reacting to disaster after disaster.”
According to a recent study released by Kofi Annan, 300,000 people per year are already dying from climate change impacts. Millions more are suffering from its effects including sea-level rise, coastal erosion, increased droughts, floods and forest fires.
In Bangladesh and India alone, climate change impacts could force 125 million people from their homes. Making a poignant reference to his own former refugee status, Prime Minister Singh said, “I have personal experience of what it feels to be displaced. That fate is not one that should be visited upon another 125 million of my countrymen.”
“Internal displacement aside, climate change will also affect agriculture and further undermine our food security. Given that every third malnourished child on the planet is Indian, unless urgent action is taken on climate change, we cannot meet most of our Millennium Development Goals.”
As the development versus environment debate heats up in India, China and other countries across the globe are facing significant internal pressure to balance the material aspirations of their own people with their very survival.
According to Dr. Singh, this is no longer a debate. “India can sustain its economic growth without increasing its carbon emissions. Today, our government is setting a target of 48 percent renewables by 2050. With that in place, 915 GigaWatts of our electricity could be coming from sources you can pluck straight out of the sky: the wind, the sun’s rays. When India implements my plan, no new thermal power plants or coal mines will be required.”
Currently, more than 68 percent of India’s energy needs are met by burning fossil fuels – over 92.3 percent of which are coal – at a cost of over $140 billion every year. Coal-fired thermal power plants are also responsible for half a billion metric tons of CO2 that India emits every year, while the automotive sector produces another 8.6 million metric tons.
In a scathing attack on the oil and coal industries attempting to seek ramped-up subsidies from New Delhi, the usually soft-spoken Dr. Singh said, “We cannot allow these ‘Fossil Fools’ to pretend that a climate catastrophe can simply be wished away.”
Photo credit: /AFP PHOTO/ RA VEENDRAN
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