India Climate Change and Energy News - Week of August 17, 2010 to August 23, 2010

Climate Change and Environment

Rs. 25000 Cr. To Tackle Climate Change: Jairam 

“The Centre has made a provision of Rs. 25,000 crore to mitigate the effects of climate change, a serious problem that India will face in the coming decades, Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh told the Rajya Sabha on Saturday.”

(The Hindu, 8/21/10)

Industrial Nations Divide on Future World Bank Anti-Carbon Policy 

“India also argues that the bank should consider more efficient coal plants that use supercritical or ultra-supercritical technology as part of "low-carbon" development…. "The Bank's support should focus on enhancing India's ability to achieve energy self-reliance and security with minimum of conditions and certainly without the crippling emphasis on fossil fuels (especially coal) and climate change concerns," according to a summary of opinions at an April consultation with government and other groups in New Delhi”

(The New York Times, 8/17/10)

Meet of BRIC Nations To Discuss Legal Issues In Climate Change

“In the run-up to the Cancun climate summit later this year, leading decisions makers from the BRIC block --Brazil, India, Russia and China-- will come together at a two-day meet starting in New Delhi on  to discuss legal issues surrounding climate change. The colloquium on "Climate Change Law and Governance in South Asia", which aims to inspire legal discussion within and between the BRICs countries, is being jointly organised by the Environment Ministry of Government of India and the Geneva-based International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).”

(The Hindustan Times, 8/19/10)

Need For Predictive Gauge Of Climate Change Impact Stressed 

“As the official machinery grapples to ascertain the extent of damage caused by the recent cloudburst and flash floods in Leh district that claimed close to 200 lives, experts are stressing the need for modelling the impact of climate change at the local level to predict such calamities in advance.”

(The Hindu, 8/18/10)

Energy

India Cabinet Approves Key Nuclear Bill

“India's cabinet on Friday approved a long-delayed draft law aimed at opening up its civilian nuclear power industry to private investment, particularly from US companies, reports said.... The bill, which will now be sent to parliament where it is expected to pass comfortably, is part of a landmark atomic energy pact with the United States in 2008 that granted India access to foreign nuclear technology.”

(AFP, 8/20/10)

India - U.S. Clean Energy Research Center Established

“India and the United States on Friday formally signed an agreement for cooperation on a joint Clean Energy Research Development Centre…. The agreement follows from the discussions held between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Barack Obama during the former’s visit to Washington in November 2009. At the time the countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding to enhance cooperation on energy security, energy efficiency and climate change. Discussions on the same saw further progress during the Strategic Dialogue held in June this year.”

(The Hindu, 8/20/10)

ICT Infrastructure Energy Consumption To Grow 30% By 2014

“The energy consumption of India Inc's information and communication technology infrastructure is forecast to grow by 30 per cent to over 31 trillion-watt hours by 2014, a study by global research firm Gartner said…. ‘Energy consumption by enterprise information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure is forecast to pass 31 trillion-watt hours (TWh) by 2014. It stood at an estimated 24 TWh in 2009,’ Gartner Principal Research Analyst Ganesh Ramamoorthy told PTI.”

(The Economic Times, 8/22/10)

Solar Mission To Reduce Cost Of Solar Power: Ministry

“'Capacity addition targets and policy instruments under the National Solar Mission have been structured to capitalise on and to push-for aggressive cost reduction in solar energy systems in the coming years,' said B. Bhargava, director with the ministry of new and renewable energy, at a workshop on solar power plants organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry…. He said that the phase 1 of the mission will be quite critical as a mode for learning the ropes in implementing in increasing, which will be applied to the next two phases…. Under phase 1, only 5 percent of the total target was been released, while phase 2 has target of 3,000-4,000 megawatt of grid-connected solar power generation.”

(Sify, 8/18/10)

This Spill Is Unique, A Freak Accident

“The spill has adversely affected the peak breeding season of the marine life here and contaminated at least 100 km of the coastline substantially. This includes around 70 km of mangrove cover. But the exact extent of impact can only be ascertained after detailed reports from the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) and the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS)…. “For the future, we have many important lessons to learn from the incident.” He said the ports will be equipped with Tier-I pollution response system in six to eight months, wherein they will have the capacity to combat leakage of up to 700 tonnes. This measure is a part of the National Oil Spill Disaster Contingency Plan (NOS-DCP) drawn up in 1996.”

(Hindu, 8/15/10)

Environmental Compliance and Governance

US Denies Pressuring India On Bhopal Strategy

"The push back against big business has forced the government to strengthen safeguards in a bill to limit liability for nuclear companies in India — a crucial prerequisite for U.S. companies like GE seeking to build nuclear power plants here. It has also galvanized the Ministry of Environment, which is trying to quash billions of dollars worth of projects by South Korea's Posco Steel, U.K.-listed Vedanta Resources, and Jindal Power — a powerful Indian conglomerate — on environmental grounds.”

(The Associated Press, 8/20/10)

(Prepared by Andy Gupta, Program Assistant)

Note: The linked articles in this post are provided for informational purposes only and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the India Initiative or of the Natural Resources Defense Council.