The breakthrough announcement last week by the United States and China of a deal setting limits on greenhouse gases has offered new hope for a global agreement on climate change. The U.S.-China deal follows the European Union’s ambitious pledge to reduce emissions by 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2030. Now the world needs India, already the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, to add to the momentum. Without India on board, the best efforts of the rest of the world will not be enough. Which means that India must rethink its relationship with coal and redouble its investment in developing renewable energies.
India’s long-held position is that it will not sacrifice eradicating poverty to limit carbon emissions. Nearly 300 million Indians have no access to electricity, and millions more live with regular power cuts and brownouts. India’s current share of global greenhouse gas emissions is 7 percent, compared with a combined share of about 45 percent for the United States and China. But India’s economy is growing fast, and the energy infrastructure India builds now will determine its capacity to rein in emissions over the next critical decades for climate change.
To its credit, India is making a big push for solar energy, and is home to Asia’s largest solar plant. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged to create a 50,000-strong “solar army” to help rapidly expand India’s solar capacity — and train job-hungry young Indians in the technologies of the future.
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