[This post will almost surely trigger another wave of hate mail. It happens almost every time I say something that’s perceived as being negative about India or China. I would remind anyone so inclined–and you know who you are–that I’m not making any moral judgments by linking to, quoting, and discussing the NY Times article below. I’m talking purely about the “feeds and speeds” of future greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. So everyone, please take a deep breath, step away from the keyboard for a few moments, and think about the ramifications of the situation described below…]

India’s Roaring Economy Is Hitched to a Galloping Addiction to Coal (emphasis added):

While environmental groups in developed nations talk of a coming world based on solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy, India’s 8 percent economic growth rate is powered by coal. Its consumption is projected to increase by at least 400 percent by the year 2030, according to the government’s 2005 Integrated Energy Policy report.

This means that in the next 20 years, India will extract, transport, import and burn coal at record rates. It could emit between 4 billion and 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year and approach the United States’ current emission levels, according to the report.

“While others are worrying about global warming, India’s energy elite fret mainly about how to secure enough coal,” David Victor, a professor at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego, recently wrote in the Boston Review.

About 70 percent of India’s electricity comes from coal-burning plants, and that fraction is likely to grow, according to Victor. At the moment, India’s power supply is running about 12 percent behind demand, resulting in frequent blackouts. There is also a shortage of coking coal needed to feed the demands of cement and steel manufacturing.

And as for how India generates electricity, according to the IEA the historical data looks like this (click for the full-size version in a PDF file):

And yes, the purple wedge is coal/peat.

China and India scare me spitless for the following reasons:

• They have the two largest populations on the planet, combining for just over 2.5 billion people, or 36.9% of the world population.
• Their combined CO2 emissions from energy consumption are just over 7.3 billion metric tons/year, or 25% of the world total. Clearly they have low per capita emissions, in light of their population percentage. By comparison, using the same data sources, the US has just 4.54% of the world’s population but emits over 20% of the CO2 from energy consumption.
• Both China and India have committed only to reducing the CO2 intensity of their economies, which, combined with their quick growth rates virtually guarantees they’ll emit more CO2 in the coming years. They’ve also made it clear they have no intention of putting climate change concerns ahead of economic growth.
• Even a modest increase in per capita CO2 emissions applied to such a large portion of the world population means we have a gigantic problem. Combine that with the difficulty of getting any meaningful emissions reductions from the US (and the prospects are looking dimmer on that front by the day) and it’s hard to see how we’ll avoid a huge amount of warming, well above the official target of 2C by 2100.
• This “world views in collision” situation–China, India, and some other countries saying, “the developed nations emitted all that CO2 for years, so it’s not fair to ask us to constrain our economies”, and the developed nations saying, “pointing fingers is useless because it doesn’t matter where future emissions come from–if we blow our carbon budget we’re in big trouble”–will be the number one source of gridlock in international climate negotiations for at least the next decade.

This view I’m trying to promote, the idea that we should look at countries not as “developed” or “developing” but in terms of their potential for high future emissions, has almost no chance of being anything more than a blogosphere talking point. The major current and potential emitters will continue to act in their own self-interest, as defined in an extremely shortsighted way. This means the US won’t commit to the level of emissions reductions needed, and China and India will increase their emissions. This situation will get much messier before it sorts itself out. We’ll see finger pointing, heated and decidedly undiplomatic statements from diplomats, at least one major attempt to impost trade sanctions on countries reluctant to do what’s needed, and US domestic politics turning into a far larger and more grotesque circus. And all the while, the atmospheric level of CO2 will continue to rise, the oceans will grow more acidic, the impacts of global climate change will continue to pile up, and we’ll try to find a form of geoengineering that will miraculously save us from ourselves.