The Curious Case of India’s Per Capita Emissions

With the Copenhagen Climate talks just a few months away India has fallen back to its argument of its per capita carbon emissions being very low compared to those of the developed countries as it continues to resist mandatory emissions cut and push developed countries to own up to their historical responsibilities.

So why does India keeps coming back with this ‘low per capita emissions’ argument whenever there are demands that it takes steps to reduce its carbon emissions. One reason, quite obviously, is that they are really very low for a huge and booming economy like India. India’s per capita emissions are little less than 2 tonnes whereas those of the United States are more than 20 tonnes. The reason for that is the difference in the sizes of their respective economies and, as one of the Chinese official noted, the luxurious lifestyle that the United States (and developed countries in general) follow.

Still India is the fourth largest producer of greenhouse gases. The Indian government’s claims that any mandatory emission cuts would hamper its efforts to alleviate poverty got backing from a World Bank report. The World Bank report said that India is right in not excepting mandatory emission cuts. The Indian government maintains that it has every right to pursue an aggressive economic development path which would improve the standard of living of its people. Essentially they want to achieve economic equivalence with the developed countries using their abundant & cheap coal reserves without any obligations to slow down the economic growth in any way.

India has all the rights to pursue such a policy but if it intends to achieve living standards similar to those enjoyed by people of developed countries wouldn’t its per capita emissions rise in sync with its rapidly growing economy.

Its not the households that have made India the fourth largest producer of greenhouse gases, it is the less efficient industrial sector that continues to be inefficient at utilization of resources. A 2007 report of the International Energy Agency takes measure of the industrial energy efficiency and carbon emissions.

In China and India, small-scale operations with relatively low efficiency continue to flourish, driven by transport constraints and local resource characteristics, e.g. poor coal and ore quality. The direct use of low grade coal with poor preparation is a major source of inefficiency in industrial processes in these countries.

This partly explains why the average efficiency of the iron and steel industries in China, India, Ukraine and the Russian Federation are lower than those in OECD countries. These four countries account for nearly half of global iron production and more than half of global CO2 emissions from iron and steel production.

In India, new, but energy inefficient, technologies such as coal-based direct reduced iron production play an important role. These technologies can take advantage of the local low-quality resources and can be developed on a small scale, but they carry a heavy environmental burden.

This report makes it clear that India needs to concentrate its efforts at increase energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions in its industrial sector. By pointing out to its low per capita emissions India is ignoring the bigger problem of industrial emissions.

Given its ambitious economic growth aspirations, India’s per capita emissions will soon breach the 2 tonnes mark which is the globally accepted limit for sustainable development. The developing countries must acknowledge the fact that their use of cheap, abundant fossil fuels to drive their economic growth will not only increase their greenhouse emissions but would also potentially undo the mitigation efforts done by developed countries. While the developed countries have a historical responsibility, the developing countries have the responsibility to control their expected carbon emissions.

A study by the International Energy Agency shows about 56 per cent of the growth in emissions between now and 2030 will be from India and China, said Namrata Patodia, a research fellow at the Pew Centre for Climate in Washington DC.

Energy analysts estimated that India’s electricity, transportation and industrial sectors would together gobble up a billion tonnes of coal annually within a decade — more than double the current 450 million tonnes.

The link between economic growth and growth of carbon emissions cannot be refuted which is why even the developed countries are struggling to pledge significant emission reductions. To control its industrial as well as domestic carbon emissions India would need to use clean and sustainable resources.

Decreasing dependence on coal and increasing use of renewable energy sources by a small but significant percentage every year would not put any huge economic burden on the masses. India, no doubt, should expect technological and monetary help from the developed countries but it should also turn its plans into actions to demonstrate its willingness to transform its energy systems from those based on fossil fuels to those based on renewable sources.

Image: Jayesh Bheda (Creative Commons)