India Climate Change and Energy News
Posted June 15, 2009 in Solving Global Warming
Here is the latest from India on climate change and energy compiled by Bidisha Banerjee:
President Obama has extended an invitation to newly-reelected Prime Minister Singh to visit Washington. And Secretary Clinton may visit India late next month.
India is moving to establish an Environmental Protection Agency with authority to enforce environmental laws. Jairam Ramesh, the Minister of Environment and Forests, "pointed out that the EPA in the US had a staff of 18,000 and an annual budget of $7 billion, whereas India's Central Pollution Control Board had a staff of 150 and an annual budget of Rs.400 million. 'We're going to get our EPA that is professionally staffed and fully funded. It's going to be a professional, transparent, science-based regulatory system,'" Ramesh said.
At the just completed round of climate negotiations in Bonn, Adopt a Negotiator bloggers interviewed Indian negotiators Dr. Prodipto Ghosh and Mr. R.K. Sethi. As the talks wound up, Shyam Saran, the top Indian climate envoy, suggested that the talks did not progress satisfactorily because rich nations had failed to live up to their current commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to make commitments to deep further reductions. While Saran rejected the idea of a supra-national agency that would verify India's attempts to reduce its carbon emissions, he did announce that the Indian government will shortly publish details about the eight missions which fall under its National Climate Action Plan.
The draft strategy for India's solar mission - the most ambitious solar program in any nation so far, according to Greenpeace -- was recently leaked; the New York Times's Green Inc. blog takes a hard look at how much the solar plan would cost, and concludes that financial support from the industrialized world would play a key role. The Clinton Foundation is embarking on a 5,000 MW solar thermal power plant in Gujarat, where discussions about land acquisition for the project are underway.
A UN University representative noted that 25-50 million people will be displaced by next year due to climate change; North India will be one of the worst-affected areas.
