Thursday, October 02, 2014

A Climate Change Non-Event

Indian Prime Minister Modi in his visit to the US, at the event at Madison Square Garden, at the Council for Foreign Relations, at the United Nations General Assembly spoke repeatedly of the crisis that climate change is bringing upon the planet, and of his plans for clean energy for India.  He has the slogan "zero defect, zero effect" for manufacturing in India - i.e., Indian manufacturing will try to be world class and try to have zero net effect on the environment.

Strange that this has received next to zero coverage in the US media and blogs. 

If you estimate the sustainable rate of carbon dioxide emission (so that CO2 concentration remains constant) for the planet, and divide it by the world population, you get a per capita carbon budget (tons of CO2 per person per year).

Two important observations:
  1. Indians as of 2007 were well below this per capita limit.
  2. 1250 million Indians want to industrialize and fast (that is why they voted for Modi).
 So what India is able to do is crucial to the future of the planet's climate.

When the Indian Prime Minister Modi comes to the US and talks about climate change, and his aspiration to industrialize in a carbon-neutral way, and the US media collectively gives a yawn, it is infinitely and amply clear, that climate change is not taken seriously here, even in the liberal section of the media. When a key player in the world's carbon dioxide economy lands on their shores, and talks planet-friendly, it is a non-event.

Conclusion: Climate change doesn't exist for the Republicans; and for the Democrats, it is merely a way to bash Republicans as anti-science.