India Will Reach Net-Zero Emissions by 2070, Modi Tells COP26 (bloomberg.com) 48
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the world's third-biggest emitter will zero out pollution by 2070, the boldest statement of intent at the opening of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. From a report: The country will increase its non-fossil fuel power capacity to 500 gigawatts by the end of the decade, he said, raising the country's goal from 450GW. He said half of India's electricity will come from renewable sources by 2030 Modi also committed to increasing India's 2030 carbon intensity goal -- measured as carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product -- from 35% to 45%. It will also strive to produce half of its electricity using renewable energy and cut carbon-dioxide emissions 1 billion tons from business as usual by 2030. The Indian leader also demanded that rich countries ramp up their contributions to help less developed nations decarbonize. "It is India's expectation that the world's developed nations make $1 trillion available as climate finance as soon as possible," Modi said. "Justice would demand that those nations that have not kept their climate commitments should be pressured."
Obligatory Terminator quote (Score:2)
"Look at it this way: in a hundred years, who's gonna care?" Or in this case, 50.
Spoiler: (Score:2)
No, they won't.
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I don't really care if they do or not, but what I care about, at least when politician speak, is what is their target for the next 4 years (or whatever their term is). Typically, the plan is to do nothing for the next 10 years, and then somehow magically the successors will find a way to drastically reduce emissions down to 0 by year X.
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Or, like some politicians, you can simply deny the problem exists, hence it is solved.
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Except the US republican party, I don't think there are a lot of mainstream political parties still denying anthropogenic global warming. At least in democracies.
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It's not true everywhere. It's true that countries such as USA, Canada and Australia are climate hypocrites (at least all parties who held power in the last 50 years).
But a lot of major European countries did a lot to reduce their emissions. Even right-wing parties reduced emissions over there, and it wasn't easy because they were already much lower compared to the big polluters.
Re:Spoiler: (Score:4, Informative)
Typically, the plan is to do nothing for the next 10 years, and then somehow magically the successors...
From this summary
From just a few summaries back
Not just planning to do something in the coming decade, but pretty clear evidence that they are already doing something in the right direction. More needed sure, but misplaced cynicism doesn't help.
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India is a growing economy. So of course they'll increase power generation in the next decade. Some of it would have been non-fossil no matter what. They also have a lot of air pollution problems in their cities. So even if global warming wasn't a thing, they would still have to fight air pollution.
Still, it says nothing about their actual plan for carbon neutrality by 2070. How much will be done in the next 10 years to achieve that goal? How about they get milestones, such as going from X to net 0 in 50 ye
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also, did they say they were going to shut down any fossil-fuel plant? Adding renewable power doesn't reduce CO2 emissions, if you keep the old plants running.
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They might. It depends on how technology improves by then. A lot can happen.
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Honestly, while 10 or 20 year targets are hard to imagine, 50 year targets seem a little myopic.
It isn't just lines on a chart, there will be major weather tragedies and losses of habitable land every month.
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The good news is... (Score:2)
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It is nearly 50 years away after all.
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No point in worrying about fusion.
We've had a perfectly good solution (fission) for better than 70 years.
And most of the commenters, I expect, consider fission a worse problem than AGW. And there's not much reason to believe they won't transfer their hate to fusion, once they figure out (within five years of the first self-sustaining fusion) that it produces radioactive wastes as well (different types, different amounts, but it won't be the miraculous absolutely clean power source they imagine)....
Fifty years? LMAO!! (Score:3)
In 50 years, Mr. Modi? (Score:5, Insightful)
India will be dustbowl in 50 years with the current rate of dumping carbon into the atmosphere. Way to sell your country down the river, Modi.
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It's like in the book The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.
When they have a heatwave that kills 20 million people, they'll start leading the world in change.
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Just read it -- it was a *great* read. Really thought-provoking.
Re:In 50 years, Mr. Modi? (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at the areas on this chart [ourworldindata.org] - remembering that CO2 emissions travel worldwide. Was it the small yellow area, that Modi's responsible for, which was India's problem, or was it the big green area that's someone else's responsibility that might be selling India down the river? If Modi halved his emissions would that make any difference at all? If the person responsible for the big red bit halved their emissions would that help more?
It's not about current ranking... (Score:3)
It's not the ranking You need to worry about, mate. But the growth.
This is the exact reason we cannot wait 50 years for a solution. In order to reach the UN goal (or the IPCC), we need to cut back about 90% from current greenhouse gas emmisions. But many developing countries, such as China and India are still growing their CO2 footprint at an alarming rate. This means that we might end up with a peak that is twice as high as the current scenario, making it a LOT harder to reach the goal.
Similarly, A lot of
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That doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that India committed to something. No one cares whether it's laughably inadequate or hopelessly infeasible or any of that other junk. What matters is that India's representatives kneeled down at that Climate Change altar and said stuff that the establishment can put in a headline and then use to apply pressure elsewhere.
So, good job India. Mission accomplished. Please resume your frenetic coal planet expansion and don't worry about any of this till
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Username checks out.
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India will be dustbowl in 50 years with the current rate of dumping carbon into the atmosphere. Way to sell your country down the river, Modi.
India pumps out less than a third of the US's CO2 emissions and less than a fourth of China's. Per capita, India's CO2 emissions are 1/8th of the US. A 10% decline in India's emissions will be worth less than a 5% reduction by the US. Climate change due to CO2 emissions does not respect political borders. So even if India committed to net zero in the next six months, it wouldn't make a difference unless everyone else does the same thing.
The heavy lifting has to come from places like the US and China. Both a
Press X to Doubt (Score:2)
phhhft, nothing will be done. (Score:2)
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Anyone the least bit knowledgeable about climate policy, right or left, has known that China and India have to address their emissions in a big way, or we blow right past the +1.5C temperature anomaly. I mean, I was reading about these kinds of policies fifteen years ago.
There are already proposals to put tariffs on goods being imported into jurisdictions with carbon taxes from jurisdictions without carbon taxes. The "far left" European Union's CBAM (carbon border adjustment mechanism) is one example. Wan
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And when I speak of the far left, I am talking about the ones that allow CHina, India, etc to continue growing their emissions, rather than simply putting a STOP to growthy by insisting on no more new coal plants (if not no new fossil fuel plants).
"rich countries" (Score:1)
India is one of the world's largest economies by GDP. If they can send rockets into space and have nuclear weapons, they're not poor.
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If they can send rockets into space and have nuclear weapons, they're not poor.
OK, now do North Korea.
Pay up! (Score:1)
... or the planet gets it.
That's the message I hear from Modi.
India is poor - GDP/capita of US$2000/year, compare with China at US$10000/year (both nominal, figures from Wikipedia).
India will need help paying for replacing carbon intensive energy, not only electricity but also cooking (often done with petroleum gas or kerosene) and transport. They haven't the money to do it themselves (unlike China).
Modi, though, is clearly making any climate action at all conditional on large cash transfers to India from W
(does the math) 44 years too late (Score:4)
Look, the cold hard reality is that we need to reduce emissions by 50 % by 2025 and by 80% by 2030.
2070 is AFTER Bangladesh is completely uninhabitable and most of Pakistan and India.
As in 30 years AFTER.
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This is why I favor geoengineering approaches. While they're high risk, the reality is simple... We're not cutting CO2 emissions by anywhere near enough. We aren't going to. And the longer we kid ourselves with false promises the worse it will get before we accept the war is lost. So the only consideration is whether it's more risky than the catastrophic level of climate change coming with realistic assessments of what other mitigation policies will accomp
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Agree. But, the only viable geo engineering technique we have developed for this purpose is the Carbon Capture and Storage tech. While it is promising, it is also either energy intensive, or resource intensive. So as long as we use carbon BUILDING the damned things, its not really a good option. But we will get there at some point.
Lasering the molecules, to break them into core molecules, is not possible yet, at least not at anything resembling scale. Solarshade, also not invented yet. We MIGHT be able to g
Cows (Score:2)