3 ms·

> India's CO2 emissions are pittance compared to US, China and especially if you take the population into account. Exactly. India's carbon emissions per capit

> India's CO2 emissions are pittance compared to US, China and especially if you take the population into account. Exactly. India's carbon emissions per capita are the lowest of all the countries listed here[0]; the US emits almost ten times as much per capita. That's literally 2.3 times as much by volume, even though India has 1.2 billion people. (And the US isn't even the top of the list - Australia is!) For comparison, the EU emits four times as much carbon per-capita as India, which amounts to 1.5 times as much by volume (despite the EU's small population of only 500,000,000). China is often used as a bogeyman when it comes to the environment, but honestly, even China's emits half as much carbon per-capita as the US does, and only a hair more than the EU does. They just have four times as many people as the US. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

danans 11y ago
Even when India achieves a level of development comparable to the US, Europe, and increasingly China, it will likely still have a lower household CO2 footprint, just because it is a much warmer place, with higher population density. The farther north you are and as long as the primary fuel is carbon-based (NG, Electricity from NG or Coal), you'll need more of it to survive. Transportation CO2 in India will likely grow, as it is a function of travel frequency and distances for people/goods, and it takes basically the same amount of energy per mile everywhere. What's really striking to me is that the US per capita CO2 emission probably isn't twice as high as China because of our high industrial output, but rather because of our widespread use of carbon-intensive heating and propulsion tech coupled with huge houses and vehicles, and low density cities. All of these CO2 emissions can be turned around by really disruptive low/zero CO2 energy generation, both variable renewables and stable baseline to replace coal. For that we either need mass cheap energy storage, or invest seriously in safe (non-fissile?) nuclear energy, preferably both.
- devdas 11y ago
  And then Indians will spend that on cooling instead.
  - danans 11y ago
    Heating a house from 30F to 70F uses far more energy than cooling a house from 100F to 70F: http://www.citylab.com/housing/2013/03/cities-dependent-air-conditioning-might-be-more-sustainable-we-think/5115/ http://www.citylab.com/housing/2013/03/cities-dependent-air-... The question is where does the electricity for cooling come from. If it's mostly coal-powered electricity, that's pretty bad, considering the low efficiency and high CO2 output of coal burning electricity generation. Obviously that needs to change. Hopefully they start using more nuclear and renewables as the cost of those drops. For one thing, India has incredible solar resources (http://mnre.gov.in/sec/DNI_Annual.jpg http://mnre.gov.in/sec/DNI_Annual.jpg, http://www.dlr.de/tt/Portaldata/41/Resources/dokumente/institut/system/projects/reaccess/ssedni60.jpg http://www.dlr.de/tt/Portaldata/41/Resources/dokumente/insti...), being as close to the equator as it is, and it also has large populations living in areas with high irradiation, in comparison to Europe or even China. Once the price of solar drops further (it's within reach of the middle-class in US and Western-Europe), they will have even more reason to adopt it.

danans 11y ago

Even when India achieves a level of development comparable to the US, Europe, and increasingly China, it will likely still have a lower household CO2 footprint, just because it is a much warmer place, with higher population density. The farther north you are and as long as the primary fuel is carbon-based (NG, Electricity from NG or Coal), you'll need more of it to survive. Transportation CO2 in India will likely grow, as it is a function of travel frequency and distances for people/goods, and it takes basically the same amount of energy per mile everywhere. What's really striking to me is that the US per capita CO2 emission probably isn't twice as high as China because of our high industrial output, but rather because of our widespread use of carbon-intensive heating and propulsion tech coupled with huge houses and vehicles, and low density cities. All of these CO2 emissions can be turned around by really disruptive low/zero CO2 energy generation, both variable renewables and stable baseline to replace coal. For that we either need mass cheap energy storage, or invest seriously in safe (non-fissile?) nuclear energy, preferably both.

devdas 11y ago
And then Indians will spend that on cooling instead.
- danans 11y ago
  Heating a house from 30F to 70F uses far more energy than cooling a house from 100F to 70F: http://www.citylab.com/housing/2013/03/cities-dependent-air-conditioning-might-be-more-sustainable-we-think/5115/ http://www.citylab.com/housing/2013/03/cities-dependent-air-... The question is where does the electricity for cooling come from. If it's mostly coal-powered electricity, that's pretty bad, considering the low efficiency and high CO2 output of coal burning electricity generation. Obviously that needs to change. Hopefully they start using more nuclear and renewables as the cost of those drops. For one thing, India has incredible solar resources (http://mnre.gov.in/sec/DNI_Annual.jpg http://mnre.gov.in/sec/DNI_Annual.jpg, http://www.dlr.de/tt/Portaldata/41/Resources/dokumente/institut/system/projects/reaccess/ssedni60.jpg http://www.dlr.de/tt/Portaldata/41/Resources/dokumente/insti...), being as close to the equator as it is, and it also has large populations living in areas with high irradiation, in comparison to Europe or even China. Once the price of solar drops further (it's within reach of the middle-class in US and Western-Europe), they will have even more reason to adopt it.