The Godrej group for years has been serving its customers through its consumer products. For over 25 years, the company has not only adopted innovative ways to lure the hearts of their customers, but has also undertaken several eco-friendly initiatives in an aim to build a brighter and more sustainable India.
In 1989, the first Sewage Treatment and Recycling Plant, with a capacity of 500 cubic metres per day for recycling sewage water from industrial premises, was put into effect. The unit recycles around 5 lakh litres of water by treating domestic sewage and around 6 lakh litres of water by treating industrial effluents to get this clear water as the final product. This treated water is then used in the gardens and landscaping requirements in the industrial township. So in an attempt to avoid use of good potable water for secondary use like landscaping, the company has managed to reduce the burden on Municipal sewers and eventual outflow of untreated water to the environment.
Adi Godrej, Chairman, Godrej Group said, "All companies in India need to be committed to the green movement because pollution, climate change are problems that will affect our country we need to do our best, the good news is most of these practices are economical so that adds to your profit. They don't get subtracted from them if you do it well. So dissemination of this investment and commitment to it is important."
The Godrej Green Business Centre in Hyderabad was setup as a joint initiative of the Government of Andhra Pradesh, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) with the technical support of USAID to ensure companies undertake energy efficiency, green buildings, renewable energy, and water recycling initiatives.
The company has a detailed process in place before it takes on a project. It Identifies target industries in Hyderabad, after which it conducts a preliminary plan visit to study and understand the overall functioning of the particular unit. A team then identifies cases and opportunities for possible cleaner production solutions. It then jots down the need for additional measures. This then results in a pilot plant experiment. The centre finally helps the company setup the required equipment and demonstrates cleaner production solutions.
This project can be implemented in various industrial sectors like Paper and Pulp, Chemical, Engineering, Pharmaceutical, steel and others.
But there are environmental concerns that stretch a little beyond the day to day functioning of a company. It is in the supply chain management for instance that carbon emissions are seen the most.
Dipankar Ghosh, Partner - Climate Change & Sustainability Services said, "Analyst on Customers pressurizing companies to go the green way and how carbon emission can be reduced on SCM level."
Adi Godrej, Chairman, Godrej Group said," Extremely important for India and Indian business to be conscious and ensure we create an environment which is less polluted and friendly to climate change."
An industry report conducted in the 1st quarter of this year showed that out of 100 companies 47% plan to increase their investments in eco friendly way to conduct business and Consumer goods manufacturers and retailers appear to be the leaders. So with companies making firm commitments to the environment we sure are headed toward a greener future
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
BIOFUELS
When we burn vegetable oil in an internal combustion engine, the carbon in the oil is turned into carbon dioxide and is released into the atmosphere.
The next batch of plants grown for vegetable oil will consume carbon dioxide. The plants will release oxygen and combine the carbon with hydrogen to make vegetable oil hydrocarbons.
Instead of a system where hydrocarbons are extracted from the ground and carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere, the use of renewable fuels creates a cycle where hydrocarbons are grown and carbon is moved out of the atmosphere and into plants.
A crop of oil-producing plants will absorb exactly the same amount of carbon dioxide in order to produce a gallon of vegetable oil as a gallon of vegetable oil emits when it is burned in an engine.
Because plants produce hydrocarbons and absorb carbon dioxide, renewable fuels do not contribute significantly to global warming.
Exclusive: A Review of an Important New Report: ‘Climate Change Reconsidered’
If – and at this point the chances admittedly look slim – we avoid the economic catastrophe attendant on the Obama administration’s effort to roll back global temperatures, this country will owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which, through its publications and conferences has provided a forum for the many scientists who dissent from the great global warming panic of the last 20 years.
This 800 page plus volume, based on the research of these many scientists, is designed to provide a “Team B,” independently examining the same climate data used by the UN sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). And while the IPCC’s most recent 2007 report concluded “most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations [emphasis in original], “Team B” came to the opposite conclusion, namely “that natural causes are very likely to be the dominant cause.”
That’s a gentlemanly way of putting it. The nine chapters in this volume devastatingly refute the findings of the turgidly named Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group-1 (Science) released in 2007. Because everything else depends on them, the computer models the IPCC uses to forecast future climate are fundamental to global warming science. The first chapter explores the weaknesses of computer models in fields, like climate, characterized by complexity and uncertainty. Freeman Dyson, professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, explains that climate models “do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry, and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.” MIT professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen notes mordantly that the IPCC “is trumpeting catastrophes that couldn’t happen even if the models were right.”
Some important predictions based on models simulating CO2 -induced global warming have already been proven false. To quote from Climate Change Reconsidered: “All greenhouse models show an increasing warming trend with altitude in the tropics, peaking around 10 km at roughly twice the surface value. However the temperature data from balloons give the opposite result: no increasing warming, but rather a slight cooling with altitude.”
Responding to scathing criticism on the blog of the science journal Nature, Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of one segment of the IPCC’s 2007 Report, insisted the IPCC did not make “forecasts” but “‘what if’ projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios” and hopes these “projections” will “guide policy and decision makers.” Yet surely no one expects policy makers to transform our society on the basis of “what if” scenarios of falling asteroids or invasions by aliens (hey, you never know) in apocalyptic Hollywood movies. Nor does the IPCC present its findings in that light. The 2007 Report uses the words “forecasts” and “predicts” repeatedly and it is because they believe they are dealing with “scientific forecasts” that policy makers are now acting.
Nothing better illustrates the IPCC’s slippery way of dealing with exposure of error than its handling of the controversy over the hockey stick graph, used to dramatic effect in the Al Gore movie An Inconvenient Truth. Climate Change Reconsidered recounts the full story, which can only be briefly summarized here. The graph first appeared in a 1998 study led by Michael Mann, then a young Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts. Purporting to assess temperature changes from the year 1000 to 1980, it showed nine hundred years of stable global temperatures until 1910 when temperatures seemed to rocket out of control. Gone was the Medieval Warm period (800-1300 A.D.) and the following Little Ice Age. When Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, two Canadian non-scientists trained in statistics, obtained the original study data from Mann, they found a host of mistakes. They recalculated the Northern Hemisphere temperature index for the period 1400-1980 using Mann’s own methodology and in a 2003 article in Energy and Environment (with the data refereed by the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology) summed up: “The major finding is that the [warming] in the early 15th century exceed[s] any [warming] in the 20th century.” Neither this study nor a number of other critical studies of Mann’s work has deterred the IPCC from continued reliance on the debunked hockey stick, which again appears in a series of graphs in the most recent 2007 report.
Going through Climate Change Reconsidered, this reader was struck by how thin the evidence is that human activities bear chief responsibility for global warming. A large body of research suggests changes in solar output are responsible for the lion’s share of climate change over time. (A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research since publication of Climate Change Reconsidered finds the surge in global temperatures since 1977 can be attributed in large measure to a 1976 climate shift in the Pacific ocean.) But even more striking to this reader was how strong the evidence is that the effects of global warming and specifically CO2-induced global warming (the IPCC’s biggest bugbear, since atmospheric CO2 levels rise with industrialization) are precisely the opposite of those claimed by the IPCC Reports. Far from dooming men, animals and plants to disease or extinction, the scientists who produced Climate Change Reconsidered document that rising CO2 levels increase plant growth, make plants more resistant to drought and pests, are a boon to the world’s forest and prairies, farmers and ranchers. Indeed, the evidence is strong that ecosystem biodiversity will increase in a warmer and CO2 enriched world.
If the “science” underlying the successive IPCC Reports is so half-baked, how could their findings sweep up the policy makers of the world, to the point that even the heads of government in China and India, however unwilling to sacrifice their economies on the global warming altar, feel they have to make excuses for that refusal? Thus far Czech President Vaclav Havel is the only head of state willing to stand up and say bluntly “the emperor has no clothes.” (To be sure, some Third World countries are developing novel ways of fighting back against Western demands that they reduce their carbon footprint as well. When, on a recent trip to India, Secretary of State Clinton “apologized” for the disproportionate U.S. role in producing greenhouse gases, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanded the West fork over $200 billion a year to the developing world to offset the cost of cutting emissions. Tort lawyers, take note. Now that the U.S. has admitted “fault,” a whole new world of liability may be opening up with multi-billion dollar jackpots for such model low greenhouse gas emitters as North Korea and Zimbabwe.}
Part of the explanation for the impact of the IPCC is that from its origin as an organ of the UN in 1986, the IPCC’s agenda was to justify control of greenhouse gas emissions, especially CO2. Climate Change Reconsidered reports: “From the very beginning, the IPCC was a political rather than scientific entity, with its leading scientists reflecting the positions of their governments or seeking to induce their governments to adopt the IPCC position.” The IPCC Reports derive much of their authority from their sheer size, typically 800 or more pages, reflecting what the public is told is the work of thousands of scientists. But these scientists have no direct influence on the conclusions reached by the IPCC. In the case of each Report these are formulated in a highly selective Summary for Policymakers {SPM]. As Climate Change Reconsidered puts it, “these policy summaries were produced by an inner core of scientists, and the SPMs were revised and agreed to, line by line, by representatives of member governments. This obviously is not how real scientific research is reviewed and published.”
Naturally, neither policymakers nor media ever attempt to deal with the unreadable-to-a-layman 800 page Reports. They read the SPMs, with their simplified scenarios of doom if something is not done immediately. The media eats this stuff up. It underpins disaster scares with the supposed weight of a vast scientific consensus. Global warming provides an apocalyptic scare of the century, meaty matter compared to the trivial alarms that were formerly set off by ABC’s 20/20, which used to be dubbed cancer scare of the week. The result is a vast echo chamber. Unreadable reports generate overblown summaries which produce media scare stories that mobilize publics who put pressure on policy makers who provide more funds for the unreadable reports that generate more end-of-days summaries and so on.
And for the media, global warming is the gift that keeps on giving. That’s because there’s always another Report on the horizon. The Fourth Assessment Report has come and gone but a fifth is in preparation. Between Reports climate activists hold a steady stream of conferences and congresses to ramp up the pressure. For example, in March of this year the University of Copenhagen hosted a congress on climate change attended by an impressive 2,000 scientists from over 70 countries. In June, a 36-page summary Report on Congress findings “for laymen” was presented in Brussels to a meeting of EU leaders assembled to discuss climate change. (The Report was handed to the Prime Minister of Denmark who would be hosting in December yet another UN Climate Change Conference.)
The summary Report moved up the apocalypse, warning that, barring dramatic action, it was approaching faster than anyone had thought. “[T]here is evidence pointing towards the very real possibility of triggering tipping points caused by human man-made climate change. This would lead to societal disruption for very large numbers of people…[W]e’re also starting to see signs of tipping points in connection with ocean acidification…which could put places in dangers such as the Great Barrier Reef. To recover ecosystems like that would likely take hundreds of thousands, if not many millions of years.…We cannot afford to take a business as usual approach…Future generations will inherit an unlivable planet.”
As for the thousands of scientists who participate in these congresses and write studies incorporated in various reports, scientists are no different from other people in going where the money is and the research funds are currently rolling in for studies documenting climate change. (Now that the earth shows embarrassing signs of cooling, “climate change” has displaced global warming – under that rubric, whether the earth warms or cools, we did it, and it’s up to governments to undo it.) For many of those 2,000 scientists from 70 countries in Copenhagen, this was an all-expenses-paid junket. What’s more, scientists take note that the rewards are high for those who come up with something that turns out to be politically useful. As Climate Change Reconsidered observes, there’s no better example than the rewards showered on Michael Mann. In addition to seeing his hockey stick graphs used as centerpieces by President Clinton and Al Gore, the young researcher was named an IPCC lead author and an editor of a major professional journal, The Journal of Climate.
On the other hand, critics of man-makes-climate dogma can expect nothing but invective. Al Gore, the chief water-carrier for global warming, refuses all challenges to debate. That allows others, the mainstream media included, to shut down dissent on the ground a supposed overwhelming scientific consensus has left nothing to argue over. Dissenters are dismissed as flat earthers, deniers [as in Holocaust denier] or patsies for corporations who put their bottom line above saving the planet.
Silence is another weapon in the arsenal of the reigning elite, a weapon not to be minimized. Nature, Science, and Scientific American should have been first in line to review Climate Change Reconsidered. For science writers of major newspapers its appearance should have been a major story: after all, a large number of dissenting scientific experts on climate (who aren’t supposed to exist), had combined efforts to marshal an impressive body of evidence contradicting the prevailing orthodoxy, even as major policy decisions hang in the balance. Instead, it has been ignored. Joseph Bast, long time head of the Heartland Institute, understands but is no less frustrated: “Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist compelled Scientific American to publish a lengthy (highly partisan and error-ridden) rebuttal, which only helped legitimate the kinds of questions he and many of us before him were raising. The liberal establishment is perhaps too clever to make the same mistake twice, so they are studiously ignoring Climate Change Reconsidered, even though it is a vastly more authoritative criticism of the keystone of the environmental movement today.”
How did it come to pass where CO2, an essential ingredient of life, is treated by the EPA as a pollutant? How did it come to pass that when at a time of huge dangers, ranging from imploding economies to a nuclear Iran, the leaders of the free world meet – to decree the temperature shall not rise? (Both Investors Business Daily and The Wall Street Journal compared the G-8 summit’s decision this July that the temperature should not be allowed to rise more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels to King Canute telling the tide not to come in, but while King Canute was demonstrating to his courtiers the limits of kingly power, the G-8 was demonstrating that the folly of politicians has no limits.)
The roots can be traced to the birth of the modern environmental movement on Earth Day, April 22, 1970. Contrary to popular belief, environmentalism did not develop as a typical reform movement to combat pollution. As my husband Erich Isaac and I wrote in The Coercive Utopians in 1983, it was born in a sudden apocalyptic panic. “We are already 5 years into the biosphere self-destruct era” read a sign in the Berkeley office of Ecology Action, one of the two hundred environmental groups that mushroomed in the San Francisco area alone during the panic. “The generations now on earth may be the last” read the cover of The Dying Generations, a book of readings published in 1971. Then, as now, politicians jumped on board. Congress closed down for Earth Day and New York Mayor John Lindsay told an estimated hundred thousand people packed into Union Square that the environmental issue could be summed up simply, “Do we want to live or die?”
As the environmental movement grew, the campus-based New Left, obsessed with the evils of American society and looking for issues beyond a fading Vietnam War, was increasingly attracted to it. While the environmental movement focused on energy because its leaders sought alternatives to polluting fossil fuels, political utopians saw control of energy, the economy’s lifeblood, as the key to reshaping the detested capitalist system. Moreover, the political utopians realized that environmentalists had hit on an issue capable of mobilizing masses to action – fear of nuclear power. One Friends of the Earth “public service announcement” broadcast on radio stations was typical: “Announcer: You’re looking at America’s worst pollution problem. What’s that? You say you can’t see anything? Of course you can’t. This is radio. But that’s okay. You couldn’t see it anyway. America’s worst pollution problem is the radioactive waste that comes out of nuclear power plants.” (Given that nuclear power was the one form of power that in fact produced no pollution, it might seem an odd bête noir for environmentalists, but so it was.
The common campaign of environmental and political utopians against nuclear energy was enormously successful. It is often written that the core meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1981 was responsible for ending the development of new reactors in this country but it was merely the final nail in the coffin. Yet the very success of the campaign meant some other issue was needed to keep up the environmentalist momentum and global warming would turn out to more than fill the bill. Here was an apocalypse – mass starvation, the civilized world under a wall of water – that put any possible accident at a nuclear power plant in the shade and that finally offered utopian activists the chance to reshape national energy policy.
As we pass cap and trade legislation on the basis of junk science, we put not only our economy but science itself in jeopardy. We scorn the Inquisitors who condemned Galileo for insisting that the sun, not the earth, was at the center of the solar system. But the saga of global warming shows that the vaunted scientific method offers scientists no reliable protection from succumbing to prevailing political theology. With unconscious humor, given his choice of aggressively ideological science advisers, President Obama in April announced “the days of science taking a backseat to ideology are over.”
Climate Change Reconsidered is an immensely important contribution to genuine scientific debate on issues where unscientific fear-mongering has thus far triumphed. It surely brings closer the day when science will once again assume the driver’s seat.
India to unveil 20GW solar target under climate plan
India will unveil its first solar power target as soon as September, pledging to boost ouptut from near zero to 20 gigawatts (GW) by 2020 as it firms up its national plan to fight global warming, draft documents show.
The target, which would help India close the gap on solar front-runners like China, is part of an ambitious $19 billion, 30-year scheme that could could increase India's leverage in international talks for a new U.N. climate pact in December, one of several measures meant to help cut emissions.
If fully implemented, solar power would be equivalent to one-eighth of India's current installed power base, helping the world's fourth-largest emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions limit its heavy reliance on dirty coal and assuaging the nagging power deficit that has crimped its growth.
The "National Solar Mission", yet to be formally adopted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's special panel on climate, envisages the creation of a statutory solar authority that would make it mandatory for states to buy some solar power, according to a draft of the plan, which provided detailed proposals for the first time, obtained by Reuters,
"The aspiration is to ensure large-scale deployment of solar generated power for both grid connected as well as distributed and decentralised off-grid provision of commercial energy services," the policy draft said.
Confirming the proposed plan, a top Indian climate official told Reuters that the mission contained "quite stiff" targets that could be announced in September. In June a senior climate official had hoped it could be submitted this month.
"The draft should not change much and the target of 20 GW will be there," the official said on condition of anonymity because the issue was still under discussion.
Money would be spent on incentives for production and installation as well research and development, and the plan offers financial incentives and tax holidays for utilities.
It envisions three phases starting with 1-1.5 GW by 2012 along with steps to drive down production costs of solar panels and spur domestic manufacturing. The world now produces about 14 gigawatts (GW) of solar power, about half of it added last year.
The move could unlock India's huge renewables potential and benefit companies such as Tata BP Solar, a joint venture between Tata Power (TTPW.BO) and BP plc's (BP.L) solar unit, BP Solar, and Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL.BO), a state-run power and engineering equipment firm, and Lanco Infratech (LAIN.BO).
Shares in Chinese solar equipment firms like Suntech Power Holdings (STP.N) and Trina Solar (TSL.N) have tripled since March, when Beijing first announced subsidies; Beijing is widely expected soon to raise its solar target to up to 20 GW by 2020.
Japan is targetting 28 GW of solar power by 2020.
India's climate plan released last year identified harnessing renewable energy, such as solar power, and energy efficiency as central to its fight against global warming. At the moment only about 8 percent of India's total power mix is from renewables, although it is a leading provider of wind power technology.
Experts say the voluntary domestic action will add to India's bargaining power in international negotiations, although India's refusal to commit to any binding emission targets has angered many rich countries demanding greater commitment.
"Such unilateral action will give India the moral high-ground because the rich countries have not committed to anything (in terms of finance and technology)," said Siddharth Pathak, Greenpeace India's chief climate campaigner.
Nearly 200 countries meet in Copenhagen in December to try to agree on a broader climate pact to replace the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, whose first phase ends in 2012.
MANDATORY
The draft policy document estimated that India could cut about 42 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions with its new solar plan, which aims to provide access to solar-powered lighting for 3 million households by 2012.
The plan is to make the use of solar-powered equipment and applications mandatory for hospitals, hotels and government buildings, and encourage use of solar lighting systems in villages and small towns with micro financing.
The plan also outlines a system of paying households for any surplus power from solar panels fed back into the grid.
India's long-neglected power sector is regarded by many observers as the greatest infrastructure investment opportunity in a country where nearly 56 percent of the 1.1-billion plus population do not have access to electricity.
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 78.7 GW of power generation during the five years ending March 2012. Of this, 15.1 GW has been commissioned.
In comparison, China's power generation capacity rose to 792.5 GW in 2008, more than five times India's capacity.
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 burned fossil fuels unhindered since the industrial revolution.
India, whose economy has grown by 8-9 percent annually in recent years, contributes around 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The target, which would help India close the gap on solar front-runners like China, is part of an ambitious $19 billion, 30-year scheme that could could increase India's leverage in international talks for a new U.N. climate pact in December, one of several measures meant to help cut emissions.
If fully implemented, solar power would be equivalent to one-eighth of India's current installed power base, helping the world's fourth-largest emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions limit its heavy reliance on dirty coal and assuaging the nagging power deficit that has crimped its growth.
The "National Solar Mission", yet to be formally adopted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's special panel on climate, envisages the creation of a statutory solar authority that would make it mandatory for states to buy some solar power, according to a draft of the plan, which provided detailed proposals for the first time, obtained by Reuters,
"The aspiration is to ensure large-scale deployment of solar generated power for both grid connected as well as distributed and decentralised off-grid provision of commercial energy services," the policy draft said.
Confirming the proposed plan, a top Indian climate official told Reuters that the mission contained "quite stiff" targets that could be announced in September. In June a senior climate official had hoped it could be submitted this month.
"The draft should not change much and the target of 20 GW will be there," the official said on condition of anonymity because the issue was still under discussion.
Money would be spent on incentives for production and installation as well research and development, and the plan offers financial incentives and tax holidays for utilities.
It envisions three phases starting with 1-1.5 GW by 2012 along with steps to drive down production costs of solar panels and spur domestic manufacturing. The world now produces about 14 gigawatts (GW) of solar power, about half of it added last year.
The move could unlock India's huge renewables potential and benefit companies such as Tata BP Solar, a joint venture between Tata Power (TTPW.BO) and BP plc's (BP.L) solar unit, BP Solar, and Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL.BO), a state-run power and engineering equipment firm, and Lanco Infratech (LAIN.BO).
Shares in Chinese solar equipment firms like Suntech Power Holdings (STP.N) and Trina Solar (TSL.N) have tripled since March, when Beijing first announced subsidies; Beijing is widely expected soon to raise its solar target to up to 20 GW by 2020.
Japan is targetting 28 GW of solar power by 2020.
India's climate plan released last year identified harnessing renewable energy, such as solar power, and energy efficiency as central to its fight against global warming. At the moment only about 8 percent of India's total power mix is from renewables, although it is a leading provider of wind power technology.
Experts say the voluntary domestic action will add to India's bargaining power in international negotiations, although India's refusal to commit to any binding emission targets has angered many rich countries demanding greater commitment.
"Such unilateral action will give India the moral high-ground because the rich countries have not committed to anything (in terms of finance and technology)," said Siddharth Pathak, Greenpeace India's chief climate campaigner.
Nearly 200 countries meet in Copenhagen in December to try to agree on a broader climate pact to replace the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, whose first phase ends in 2012.
MANDATORY
The draft policy document estimated that India could cut about 42 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions with its new solar plan, which aims to provide access to solar-powered lighting for 3 million households by 2012.
The plan is to make the use of solar-powered equipment and applications mandatory for hospitals, hotels and government buildings, and encourage use of solar lighting systems in villages and small towns with micro financing.
The plan also outlines a system of paying households for any surplus power from solar panels fed back into the grid.
India's long-neglected power sector is regarded by many observers as the greatest infrastructure investment opportunity in a country where nearly 56 percent of the 1.1-billion plus population do not have access to electricity.
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 78.7 GW of power generation during the five years ending March 2012. Of this, 15.1 GW has been commissioned.
In comparison, China's power generation capacity rose to 792.5 GW in 2008, more than five times India's capacity.
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 burned fossil fuels unhindered since the industrial revolution.
India, whose economy has grown by 8-9 percent annually in recent years, contributes around 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Govt 'sceptical' over carbon import tariffs
Britain opposes the use of carbon import tariffs against developing countries to encourage them to tackle global warming, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband said on Saturday.
A bill passed by the US House of Representatives last month could allow import taxes on products made in countries that do not have statutory curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, sparking an outcry from emerging economies such as India and China.
"We are sceptical about the notion of trade tariffs as a good solution to the issues that we face in relation to climate change," Miliband told AFP.
"Obviously anything that countries put forward is part of the discussion and the considerations that we make...but our position on this is pretty clear," he added.
In Europe, France has been a vocal supporter of carbon tariffs, insisting they could be a plausible option if no deal is struck at December's UN climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark.
But the French proposals have so far received little support from their fellow EU members.
The Swedish EU presidency has said the threat of introducing such measures would only make negotiations in the Danish capital more difficult, while German State Secretary for Environment Matthias Machnig described them as "a new form of eco-imperialism" that would send out the wrong message.
Some rich countries say tariffs are necessary as they could dissuade polluting industries from shifting operations overseas to places with less stringent environmental controls.
But countries such as China and India reject that view, arguing they are merely a pretext for protectionism.
It is under the Swedish presidency that the the 27-member bloc will finalise its joint position for Copenhagen.
The goal is to forge a global deal to tackle global warming after the existing Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
EU nations in 2007 committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, compared to their 1990 levels.
A bill passed by the US House of Representatives last month could allow import taxes on products made in countries that do not have statutory curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, sparking an outcry from emerging economies such as India and China.
"We are sceptical about the notion of trade tariffs as a good solution to the issues that we face in relation to climate change," Miliband told AFP.
"Obviously anything that countries put forward is part of the discussion and the considerations that we make...but our position on this is pretty clear," he added.
In Europe, France has been a vocal supporter of carbon tariffs, insisting they could be a plausible option if no deal is struck at December's UN climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark.
But the French proposals have so far received little support from their fellow EU members.
The Swedish EU presidency has said the threat of introducing such measures would only make negotiations in the Danish capital more difficult, while German State Secretary for Environment Matthias Machnig described them as "a new form of eco-imperialism" that would send out the wrong message.
Some rich countries say tariffs are necessary as they could dissuade polluting industries from shifting operations overseas to places with less stringent environmental controls.
But countries such as China and India reject that view, arguing they are merely a pretext for protectionism.
It is under the Swedish presidency that the the 27-member bloc will finalise its joint position for Copenhagen.
The goal is to forge a global deal to tackle global warming after the existing Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
EU nations in 2007 committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, compared to their 1990 levels.
India Won’t Accept Emission Caps, Minister Reiterates (Update1)
India won’t accept emission caps as part of a global plan to curb global warming, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh reiterated.
India is “conscious” that emissions in the world’s second fastest-growing major economy will increase significantly in the next few years and has pledged to keep per-capita pollution low, Ramesh said in New Delhi today.
“The world has nothing to fear from India’s development,” Ramesh said. “An artificial cap is not desirable and not even necessary as we haven’t been responsible for emissions in the first place.”
India is committed to a global climate treaty in Copenhagen, where almost 200 countries are scheduled to gather in December to debate the terms for a new accord to combat rising temperatures and sea levels. The minister said there is a “misplaced” conception that India’s isn’t doing enough to ease climate change.
India spends 2.6 percent of its $1.2 trillion gross domestic product on mitigating the effects of climate change, according to the government’s survey of the economy this month. The country has resisted demands from the U.S. to adopt legally binding caps on carbon emissions, arguing that rich nations fueled their growth for decades and were responsible for today’s global warming.
Forest Cover
“There is simply no case for the pressure” considering India produces among the lowest per-capita emissions in the world and 500 million of its citizens have no access to commercial energy, Ramesh told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a closed-door discussion July 21. He later distributed his remarks to the press.
India plans to increase its forest cover by 15 million hectares in the next six years, Ramesh said. The country at present has about 70 million hectares of forests. Forests and tree plantations can act as carbon “sinks” that absorb carbon- dioxide emissions.
“The most significant carbon sinks are being created in India,” Ramesh said. “Our forest cover is rising, whereas in many countries it’s shrinking.”
U.S. President Barack Obama’s concern for global warming has improved the chances of an accord being reached in Copenhagen to succeed the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012, the chief of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra K. Pachauri, said in an interview on July 8.
At a summit of world leaders in Italy this month, the richest countries and developing nations such as China agreed for the first time to limit the rise in average global temperature. They failed to reach an accord on goals for reducing greenhouse gases.
India is “conscious” that emissions in the world’s second fastest-growing major economy will increase significantly in the next few years and has pledged to keep per-capita pollution low, Ramesh said in New Delhi today.
“The world has nothing to fear from India’s development,” Ramesh said. “An artificial cap is not desirable and not even necessary as we haven’t been responsible for emissions in the first place.”
India is committed to a global climate treaty in Copenhagen, where almost 200 countries are scheduled to gather in December to debate the terms for a new accord to combat rising temperatures and sea levels. The minister said there is a “misplaced” conception that India’s isn’t doing enough to ease climate change.
India spends 2.6 percent of its $1.2 trillion gross domestic product on mitigating the effects of climate change, according to the government’s survey of the economy this month. The country has resisted demands from the U.S. to adopt legally binding caps on carbon emissions, arguing that rich nations fueled their growth for decades and were responsible for today’s global warming.
Forest Cover
“There is simply no case for the pressure” considering India produces among the lowest per-capita emissions in the world and 500 million of its citizens have no access to commercial energy, Ramesh told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a closed-door discussion July 21. He later distributed his remarks to the press.
India plans to increase its forest cover by 15 million hectares in the next six years, Ramesh said. The country at present has about 70 million hectares of forests. Forests and tree plantations can act as carbon “sinks” that absorb carbon- dioxide emissions.
“The most significant carbon sinks are being created in India,” Ramesh said. “Our forest cover is rising, whereas in many countries it’s shrinking.”
U.S. President Barack Obama’s concern for global warming has improved the chances of an accord being reached in Copenhagen to succeed the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012, the chief of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra K. Pachauri, said in an interview on July 8.
At a summit of world leaders in Italy this month, the richest countries and developing nations such as China agreed for the first time to limit the rise in average global temperature. They failed to reach an accord on goals for reducing greenhouse gases.
Raja slams Environment Ministry
Communist Party of India MP D. Raja has criticised the Union Environment and Forests Ministry for the manner in which it had bypassed Parliament, ignoring the Standing Committee recommendations on the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) funds. ‘Disturbing’
Describing the Ministry’s recent moves as “disturbing,” Mr. Raja, in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said the Ministry had done little to comply with the Standing Committee’s report and address the concerns it raised. Such actions could not be condoned as the government claimed to be concerned about the rights of forest dwellers and the protection of the environment. It was important that the government take steps to frame a Bill as per the Standing Committee’s recommendations. “In the wake of debates on global warming and climate change, effective protection of natural forests, environmentally sound measures to respond to deforestation and effective safeguards for the rights of marginalised communities are vital,” Mr. Raja said, seeking Dr. Singh’s intervention. “Rights ignored”
The Centre had introduced a Bill in 2008 to access Rs. 11,400 crore in the CAMPA fund by creating a statutory CAMPA authority. The Standing Committee rejected the Bill because of the lack of respect for the rights of forest dwellers, centralisation of decision-making, and the fact that it did not address the fundamental issues in the diversion procedure under the Forest (Conservation) Act, Mr. Raja said.
Hence, it was expected that the Ministry would re-frame the Bill as per the Standing Committee’s recommendations and table it in Parliament. “Yet, I learned to my shock and dismay recently that the Ministry has now decided to bypass Parliament and instead seek approval from the Supreme Court. Instead of redrafting the Bill and approaching Parliament, the Ministry approached the Attorney-General and a Supreme Court-appointed committee.”
Describing the Ministry’s recent moves as “disturbing,” Mr. Raja, in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said the Ministry had done little to comply with the Standing Committee’s report and address the concerns it raised. Such actions could not be condoned as the government claimed to be concerned about the rights of forest dwellers and the protection of the environment. It was important that the government take steps to frame a Bill as per the Standing Committee’s recommendations. “In the wake of debates on global warming and climate change, effective protection of natural forests, environmentally sound measures to respond to deforestation and effective safeguards for the rights of marginalised communities are vital,” Mr. Raja said, seeking Dr. Singh’s intervention. “Rights ignored”
The Centre had introduced a Bill in 2008 to access Rs. 11,400 crore in the CAMPA fund by creating a statutory CAMPA authority. The Standing Committee rejected the Bill because of the lack of respect for the rights of forest dwellers, centralisation of decision-making, and the fact that it did not address the fundamental issues in the diversion procedure under the Forest (Conservation) Act, Mr. Raja said.
Hence, it was expected that the Ministry would re-frame the Bill as per the Standing Committee’s recommendations and table it in Parliament. “Yet, I learned to my shock and dismay recently that the Ministry has now decided to bypass Parliament and instead seek approval from the Supreme Court. Instead of redrafting the Bill and approaching Parliament, the Ministry approached the Attorney-General and a Supreme Court-appointed committee.”
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