Developing Sustainability

The key to surviving global warming will be to develop an economy that empowers the impoverished to meet global clean-energy demands. “A big part of any linkage between fighting climate change and poverty alleviation will be building a more comprehensive energy infrastructure. ‘When hundreds of millions [of Indians] don’t have access to electricity, it’s unrealistic to expect India to cut growth,’ noted Jyoti Parikh, executive director of Integrated Research and Action for Development, a think tank, via videoconference from New Delhi. ‘People got a free ride because of delay [in combating climate change], and those who delayed did not have anything to pay later in any way…. Whatever has happened has affected our [global] carbon budget.’ But economic growth can be paired with climate change solutions. For example, the Indian government has instituted a goal of 20,000 megawatts of new solar power installations by 2022. ‘With the solar energy program, the strongest pressure is not from green groups,’ Desai noted. ‘The corporate sector in India is showing huge interest in getting into this area.'”