India, Poverty, and Climate Change

"India Enlightened" - the cover story of just-released Summer 2009 edition of OnEarth magazine - puts human faces on the critical issues that are being debated now at the climate negotiations this week in Bonn.  The author George Black and photographers Diane Cook and Len Jenshel make tangible key questions which will need to be resolved if we are to achieve a global deal on climate change at the end of the year in Copenhagen, including:

Will the U.S. and other industrialized countries recognize their historical obligation for the climate change that we are already experiencing and provide significant new financial and technical assistance to India and other more vulnerable countries to "adapt" to a changing climate?

Will India and other rapidly growing developing countries act to constrain their own rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emissions?

In his OnEarth article, George Black provocatively asks whether India can "raise a billion people out of poverty without wrecking the environment."  A more nuanced, more accurate way to pose this fundamental question not only to India, but to all nations, would be:  How can we improve the lives of billions of people worldwide and at the same time preserve the natural systems and services - including a stable climate - upon which we all depend?   As noted by Lord Nicholas Stern, in his new book, The Global Deal, the problems of climate change and sustainable development are totally intertwined.

Black writes about meeting Indian famers already dealing with environmental stress. He questions the big dams and little cars which are symbols of India's current rush to develop.  Black gains hope in encounters with entrepreneurs bringing solar lights and new water conservation technologies to villages.  There is also a sidebar which describes our effort over the last several months to scope out an NRDC endeavor in India.  We agree with OnEarth that we need more focus on India, which, like China, is critical to the future of the planet; and we are eager to see much expanded cooperation between the U.S. and India on climate change and energy.

In the future, I will be joined in this blog series by the newest member of our India team - Bidisha Banerjee, the Cameron Speth Fellow from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. In January, Bidisha traveled 1,000 miles in Indian-made solar-electric cars with the India Climate Solutions Road Tour. Over the next days and weeks, we will be blogging about India and climate change.