Human Wrongs Watch
By John Scales Avery*
30 November 2015
The MIT Technology Review recently published an important article entitled “India’s Energy Crisis”. The article makes alarming reading in view of the world’s urgent need to make a very rapid transition from fossil fuels to 100% renewable energy.
**Fossil Fuel’s last stand | Credit: Michael Loewa/Greenpeace
We must make this change quickly in order to avoid a tipping point beyond which catastrophic climate change will be unavoidable.
The MIT article states that “Since he took power in May, 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made universal access to electricity a key part of his administration’s ambitions. \
At the same time, he has pledged to help lead international efforts to limit climate change.
Among other plans, he has promised to increase India’s total power generating capacity to 175 gigawatts, including 100 gigawatts of solar, by 2022. (That’s about the total power generation of Germany.)”
Credit: Lu Guang/Greenpeace
However India plans to expand its industrial economy, and to do this, it is planning to very much increase its domestic production and use of coal. The MIT article continues, pointing out that
“Such growth would easily swamp efforts elsewhere in the world to curtail carbon emissions, dooming any chance to head off the dire effects of global climate change. (Overall, the world will need to reduce its current annual emissions of 40 billion tons by 40 to 70 percent between now and 2050.)…
…”By 2050, India will have roughly 20 percent of the world’s population. If those people rely heavily on fossil fuels such as coal to expand the economy and raise their living standards to the level people in the rich world have enjoyed for the last 50 years, the result will be a climate catastrophe regardless of anything the United States or even China does to decrease its emissions. Reversing these trends will require radical transformations in two main areas: how India produces electricity, and how it distributes it.”
The Indian Minister of Power, Piyush Goyal, is an enthusiatic supporter of renewable energy expansion, but he also supports, with equal enthusiasm, the large-scale expansion of domestic coal production in India.
Meanwhile, the consequences of global warming are being felt by the people of India. For example, last May, a heat wave killed over 1,400 people and melted asphalt streets.
https://www.rt.com/news/262641-india-heat-wave-killed/
Have India’s economic planners really thought about the long-term future?
Have they considered the fact that drastic climate change could make India completely uninhabitable?
—
*John Scales Avery, Ph.D., who was part of a group that shared the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize for their work in organizing the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network and Associate Professor Emeritus at the H.C. Ørsted Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
He is chairman of both the Danish National Pugwash Group and the Danish Peace Academy and received his training in theoretical physics and theoretical chemistry at M.I.T., the University of Chicago and the University of London.
He is the author of numerous books and articles both on scientific topics and on broader social questions. His most recent book is Civilization’s Crisis in the 21st Century http://www.learndev.org/dl/Crisis21-Avery.pdf.
This article can be re-published, sourcing and linking to: Human Wrongs Watch
Other articles by John Scales Avery published by Human Wrongs Watch:
Paris: A Sense of Proportions Is Urgently Needed
Book Review: Aurelio Peccei and Daisako Ikeda, “Before It Is Too Late”
The Need for a New Economic System – PART IX: a New Society, a New Social Contract, a New Way Life
The Need for a New Economic System – PART VIII: The Cooperative Movement
The Need for a New Economic System – PART VII: The Global Food Crisis
The Need for a New Economic System – PART VI: Adverse Effects of Globalization
The Need for a New Economic System – PART V: The Threats and Costs of War
The Need for a New Economic System – PART IV: Neocolonialism and Resource Wars
The Need for a New Economic System – PART II: Entropy and Economics
The Need for a New Economic System – PART I : Limits to Growth
Israel, Iran and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Will the Real Issues Be Discussed in 2016?
New Hope for Avoiding Catastrophic Climate Change
Albert Einstein, Scientist and Pacifist
“The Path to Zero: Dialogues on Nuclear Dangers”, by Richard Falk and David Krieger
Millay’s “Epitaph for the Race of Man”
The Future of International Law (Part I)
The Future of International Law (Part II)
The Future of International Law (Part III)
Europe Must Not Be Forced Into a Nuclear War with Russia
Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Europe – The Dangers Are Very Great Today
Why Is the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons So Urgent?
Why Is the Military-Industrial Complex Sometimes Called “The Devil’s Dynamo”?
Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand Is at Our Throats
Does It Make Sense to Saw Off the Branch on Which You Are Sitting?
Blood for Oil – The Close Relationship Between Petroleum and War
Baher Kamal
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 
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