India Want The World To Target Per Capita Emissions
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dennis Ambler
This statement comes from the Indian Ministry of Power:
The Union Minister for Power and New & Renewable Energy Shri R. K. Singh has called for a change in the global climate change discourse and narrative, shifting from a focus on total emissions to per capita emissions of each country. “India’s per capita emissions are one third of global average, one of the lowest in the world; despite that, the developed countries until recently had been putting pressure on large countries like India, to reduce emissions. Their per capita emissions remained 3 – 4 times the global average. The narrative was on total emissions of each country.”
“Point of comparison should be Per Capita Emissions”
The Minister asserted that the narrative and discourse should not be about total emissions. “If we talk about total emissions, the country with minimum emissions could be an island nation with small population, even though they may be consuming huge amounts of energy and emitting huge quantities of carbon dioxide per person. Hence, the point of comparison has to be per capita emissions. This is the change in discourse which is needed, and I want institutions like TERI to talk about this.”
The Minister said this, during his Presidential Address at the Twenty-Second Darbari Seth Memorial Lecture, held in New Delhi today, August 25, 2023, in memory of Late Shri Darbari Seth, the founder of TERI.
Noting that developed countries would talk about phasing out of coal, but not about phasing out of natural gas or other fossil fuels, the Minister exhorted TERI to come out with studies on climate actions by various countries. Once the global South starts controlling the narrative, the world will be a much fairer place, said the Minister, adding that India has been insisting on phasing out of all fossil fuels.
Speaking about India’s actions towards reducing carbon emissions, the Union Minister said that India has achieved its NDC target of 40% of our installed electricity capacity coming from non-fossil energy sources nine years ahead of schedule, in 2021 itself. “Today, 43% of our capacity is from non-fossil fuel sources. No other country has added renewable energy capacity at a rate at which we have done. We pledged at COP-21 in 2015, that we will reduce our emissions intensity by 33% by 2030; we did this by 2022, eight years in advance. So, in Glasgow, we have said that by 2030, we will have 50% of our capacity coming from renewables and that we will reduce our emission intensity by 45%. We will achieve that too well before time.”
“The truth needs to be told, developing countries need space to grow”
Shri Singh said that the developed countries have reached their peak of development; so, their emissions will either remain static or come down. “However, the building stock of developing countries will multiply, since we are developing; we will need more cement, steel and aluminium to construct those buildings and plants. This will lead to more emissions. So, we need space to grow. This point needs to be made by think tanks like TERI, that this is the space which is required by developing countries to grow.”
The Minister said that the nation is not going to compromise on the availability of energy for our growth, adding that the country is responsible for only 4% of legacy carbon dioxide load in the environment, whereas our population is around 17% of world population.
The Minister said that this discourse needs to be changed not at only at the level of world leaders, but also among the people around the world in the developed countries. “The truth needs to be told, I want institutions like TERI to step up and change the discourse.”
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1952260
If I was India, that is exactly what I would be arguing!
India’s emissions are seven times the UK’s. and have increased by 52% since 2011. Ours have declined by a third in that time.
But by focussing on per capita emissions, India would effectively be let off the hook for decades until the developed world had cut its emissions to India’s levels.
And as the Minister states, India has no intention of cutting emissions for a long time to come. Note his comment:
Shri Singh said that the developed countries have reached their peak of development; so, their emissions will either remain static or come down. “However, the building stock of developing countries will multiply, since we are developing; we will need more cement, steel and aluminium to construct those buildings and plants. This will lead to more emissions. So, we need space to grow. This point needs to be made by think tanks like TERI, that this is the space which is required by developing countries to grow.”
The Minister said that the nation is not going to compromise on the availability of energy for our growth, adding that the country is responsible for only 4% of legacy carbon dioxide load in the environment, whereas our population is around 17% of world population.
Finally let’s examine India’s renewable targets:
Speaking about India’s actions towards reducing carbon emissions, the Union Minister said that India has achieved its NDC target of 40% of our installed electricity capacity coming from non-fossil energy sources nine years ahead of schedule, in 2021 itself. “Today, 43% of our capacity is from non-fossil fuel sources. No other country has added renewable energy capacity at a rate at which we have done. We pledged at COP-21 in 2015, that we will reduce our emissions intensity by 33% by 2030; we did this by 2022, eight years in advance. So, in Glasgow, we have said that by 2030, we will have 50% of our capacity coming from renewables and that we will reduce our emission intensity by 45%. We will achieve that too well before time.”
40% of installed capacity coming from non-fossil fuels?
Needless to say, the actual generation figures are nothing like 40%. Fossil fuels accounted for 77% of India’s electricity last year, with a further 12% from nuclear and hydro, which are probably about maxed at now. Wind and solar contributed only 9%.
In terms of overall energy, the situation is even worse. Fossil fuels account for 88% of primary energy consumption, and wind and solar only 4%.
As non-OECD countries account for two thirds of the world’s emissions, we can forget about Net Zero in our lifetimes if India’s demands are met!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
“Point of comparison should be Per Capita Emissions”
With eight billion people on the planet and adding about 40 billion tons of CO2 annually, that’s five tons per-capita. Good luck with that.
I doubt that our Masters will come up with such a simple solution. They will dress it up to be as complex as income tax such that the wealthy – and the privileged – end up paying nothing.
It’s pretty clear that our reductions in CO2 emissions will not be enough for the powers that be until we are emitting what the poorest nations are emitting per capita. That may well be an idealistic goal, but where did we get the choice to agree to that? A global elite will be deciding it for us, while they emit orders of magnitude in CO2, if their CO2 emission lifestyles are properly accounted for.
Surely people in Siberia should not use more energy for heating than Pacific Islanders 🙂
The Minister missed the opportunity to expose the “climate change” fraud completely and instead still seems to ignore the fact that the climate changes all on its own irrespective of “emissions”.
The old “ingenious solution to a nonexistent problem.”
I agree.
And nobody is talking about the big lie that CO2 causes global temperature changes….The relationship between these 2 is in fact the reverse.
So
The UK hasn’t launched (or landed) anything on the Moon.
Does that mean India should be sending aid to the under developed UK ?
Yes.
No, but we should stop shovelling foreign aid to India.
It is not aid, it is payment for training medical professionals for NHS.
and Prime Ministers
It already does big time. Think corner stores, call centres, staffing healthcare, prime ministers etc etc.
It’s actually per capita consumption not emissions that count.
Neither per capita consumption nor emissions would even be thought of if the world population was 2.5 billion or so.
India would say that, wouldn’t they; since they have all those capita to divide into their emissions. As a Canadian, I assert that a fairer measure is emissions per million sq. km of territory. To be really fair, another factor would be degree heating days. But just sticking with CO2 per M sq. Km, we get this table for the top 20 emitting nations.
Ron,
Interesting table, thanks for posting.
Ron, you could take that further by looking at carbon absorption/sequestration as well to derive figures for net emissions. Canada’s enormous prairies and forests must be colossal carbon sinks so the net emissions should be much lower…..
Maybe we could look at it again once India distributes all of its wealth equally, on a per capita basis?
“…once India distributes…”
Excellent. That is kicking it into the long grass! Of course, the whole thing is nonsense, since all countries, except in the navel-gazing West, are bent on the most rapid industrialization possible, the biggest populations possible, wet-dreams of war and conquest, and the most extreme and moronic Mercantilism.
The whole nonsense is a scam and dreamed up to destroy the West. We should stop pandering to these people who for various reasons want us gone.
How about just rev the whole thing up and demand 15 minute cities, no travel or transport and of course we are only allowed a certain amount emissions each? Then people like Bill Gates have to be arrested to save the planet. Give Billy a second hand suit and a sleeping bag and put him in the City of London streets.
That or just rise up and wreak revenge!
Of course it is a scam. One would hope those countries outside Europe would start exposing that fact instead of using the fraud as an excuse to demand money from the West.
>>The whole nonsense is a scam
Yep.
‘the developed countries until recently had been putting pressure on large countries like India’
India, being a large, sovereign nation can simply say, “No.” Yet they play along, surely because they think they might extract money from the stupid West.
Indian government focuses on their people; Western governments focus on “the planet.” And “trans rights.”
India’s low per capita emissions figure hides an important reality. India has a population of 1.4 billion and, although most are desperately poor, some 300 million are regarded as middle class, although not perhaps by European standards. However about 90 million people most certainly are – think for example of India’s booming space, electronics, defence, motor vehicle and movie industries and its renowned science and medical institutions. Yet 90 million is greater than Germany’s population – and Germany, the source of 2% of global emissions, is obliged under the Paris Agreement to reduce its emissions whereas India (7% of global emissions), a ‘developing’ country, is not. Nonetheless, I don’t for a moment blame India for focusing on its per capita emissions.
What % of global emissions fo those 90 million Indians produce? Impossible to find out I suppose.
Unfortunately it is, as you say, impossible to find out. But given the extreme poverty of so many Indians and the relative wealth of the 90 million, I would expect it to be a substantial percentage (30-40%?) of India’s overall 7% – i.e. at least 2%.
What seems to be ignored/forgotten is how many times the SAME “emissions” are being “measured” for bordering countries, for example the entire European mainland. Even “measured” is not accurate. Some are “calculated” based on sales of product X in country A that is actually used in country B.
You could get some sort of estimate by assuming a European figure for the 90 million. I saw several years back that 70 million Indians had a standard of living at least equal to Italy’s. That could be on the high side as many of the comforts of life in India derive from low carbon footprint services provided by the 1.4 billion minus the 90 million others.
India has a point. There is arguably a “baseline” figure for emissions (I assume we are talking CO2 here) regardless of the country’s actual position in the wealth table.
Likewise there is merit in Ron Clutz’s argument.
Perhaps if we combined the two by measuring emissions based on population density?
So the Indian elite will have little incentive when it comes to raising the living standards of the poor?
Very clever! Neat way of absolving themselves ! I am not convinced that CO2 is the principle reason that the world is getting slightly warmer when water vapour holds the majority of atmospheric heat
Can anyone confirm/comment this: an old colleague who has a holiday home in the south of Portugal has just returned after a two months stay (lucky for some) and he tells me that Portugal is self-sufficient in renewable energy because the country has huge numbers of off-shore wind farms and on-shore solar farms. I was very sceptical…
Well, for a start, all energy is not electricity and those trucks, buses, planes, fishing boats etc etc are not electric even if some of the cars are Teslas… And windmills/solar panels produce nothing else. But you know that, so assuming he meant electricity only, then maybe this helps?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?country=~PRT
In 2022 the biggest source of electricity was gas – 17.4TWh out of 47TWh. Followed by wind, hydro, bio-energy and solar in that order, producing the rest pretty much. Coal has reduced to nothing since 2017 and electricity usage has fallen by almost exactly the same amount, but the amount of gas burnt hasn’t changed much since then.
Hi Harry, this broad brush website will give you the details for many countries worldwide.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
You can zoom in and select consumption or production of electricity and various time frame parameters.
As Stuart Brown points out over the last 12 months 27% of electricity supply is from Gas, 8% from burning wood/biomass, 20% wind, 10% solar, 5% hydro.
It’s also worth noting that Portugal (for its size) has both extensive Hydro capacity (4.64GW) – which it can vary output from – as well as 3.59GW of pumped storage to use for short term balancing. Portugal also has 3.2GW interconnector capacity with Spain.
The last 12 months “carbon intensity” of the Portuguese grid was 226g CO2 equivalent per kWh and was thus in fact considerably “dirtier” than the GB Grid (i.e. excluding Northern Ireland) which stood at 200g CO2eq per kWh.
Thanks, Ray. I did point out to my old friend that Portugal had loads of hydro but he claimed it made little difference.
Face-Palm!
Much appreciate your input.
The problem is, India’s per capita emissions are low only because most of its population is dirt poor. The whole point of development is to remedy that situation. If we had 1.4 billion people emitting as much per capita as the US (for example) that would be catastrophic. So whilst we can see his point, it’s a false argument because it can’t be allowed to happen.
In any case, solar and wind are the cheapest forms of energy, are they not? I thought they are cheaper than fossil fuels? That being the case, why would India choose fossil fuels to power their development when solar panels are so cheap and getting ever-cheaper ?
If what we are told about prices is true, there is no reason for India to even want fossil fuel energy in the first place.
Not to sure if you were being sarcastic with your “In any case, solar and wind are the cheapest form of energy, are they not?” They are not, as any number of contributions on here will confirm.
kzb^2 was probably just channelling his inner “Just Stop Oil” persona to amuse us.
🤣🤣
I do get attacks of cognitive dissonance on this subject. I can’t understand how we can think India et al deserve to be able to use fossil fuels like we did because they are cheap, but at the same time believe that solar and wind are the cheapest forms of energy.
I think there is something wrong with my double-think, I need to report to the re-education facility.
Wind and solar cannot be relied on for base power – therefore their cost is irrelevant
Looks like you are still brainwashed that there is even a problem with “emissions” at all.
The actual problem is finding any politicians / governments with the courage to stop and reverse the climate fraud
>>people emitting as much per capita
If emissions reduction is your thing, then the planet doesn’t care where they come from. The only way to reduce them is to do it across the board, no national boundaries. It is clear the ‘West’ is going all out while the BRICS etc ignore the problem. Take just China –
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2time=1970..latest&facet=none&country=CHN~IND~European+Union+%2827%29~USA~GBR&Gas=CO%E2%82%82&Accounting=Production-based&Fuel+or+Land+Use+Change=All+fossil+emissions&Count=Per+country&Relative+to+world+total=false
My erstwhile colleague with a place in Portugal (see above) things the UK should lead on NZ. I asked him, why? Because, he said, it has to be done and we need to show leadership(!) I suggested that China should show leadership but he said that as there was no chance of them, or India or the US leading the way, we needed to do so. When I pointed out that it would bankrupt the UK he didn’t care, such was his belief in the cause. And yet, this man had been a very highly paid tech-senior manager for a large international – and the very last man I would have expected to be of this opinion. It was quite an eye-opener.
Harry I suggest you discuss where his long termfinancial investments lie. A portfolio of shares etc in foreign owned renewables companies is a great “influencer”
I don’t know why we are even discussing CO2 emissions. Just let everybody produce their electricity by the cheapest means (gas coal oil etc) and develop their industries as soon as possible to reduce poverty. That may solve the migrant problem. (And the climate will be fine!)
It is amusing to note that we are all being fed non-stop fear stories (lies) about CO2 “boiling” the world, while India and China are allowed to massively increase the world’s CO2 emissions. This is clear evidence that the power-brokers do not believe in AGW, or it would be stopped by force. Most readers here are well aware that the “proven-science” is just “proven propaganda”, how to make the remainder understand??
I put together this mouseover map, based on the World Energy Statistics data. In parts it’s unsatisfactory, because they do not provide data for all countries, so there are some odd groupings that acutally hide some large real variations. I will endeavour to update it with more detail if I find other good sources.
What is clear is that major energy producers tend to produce a lot of emissions per capita. So it’s all well and good for the Indians to point fingers at world record holders Qatar, but perhaps they’d still like the gas for Dabhol power station. South America does apparently very well because most countries there are well endowed with hydro power.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/vlLHB/1/