Modi – says give me a trillion dollars
About a year ago the prime minister of India asked of the West to give him $1 trillion so that his country can move towards net zero by 2030. The issue of reduction of carbon is an international issue. If one can reduce the amount of greenhouse gases by spending half as much money in another country, why not do it. In India there is a special case for looking at Narendra Modi's plea with a degree of seriousness. India is a poor country and cannot afford to go green. The vast majority of its energy comes from very dirty and inefficient coal power stations and India has one of the highest greenhouse gases emissions per unit of energy in the world.
Right now we can reduce greenhouse gases enormously by paying for a brand new solar plant in Gujarat and close down some of the local coal plants. A subtext in this whole discussion is that the majority of greenhouse gases that were emitted came from the industrialized nations, and it is up to them to correct the mess that they have caused. The rich West is in a dilemma. At conferences it is willing to acknowledge that the burden should fall on them but surely, they are right in feeling that countries like India should participate in the costs.
The case of India is particularly important. It is a country which needs good quality power supply to ensure that its modernization programmes do not falter. And yet there is a touch of chutzpa in Modi’s attitude. The message is - few care about climate change in my country. If you want you can spend the money on it, go right ahead. We can't afford it. Give us the money and we're happy to spend it. This approach is naturally offensive to western donors. India is a country which will be particularly badly affected by climate change. Western donors want to be generous but this attitude by Modi surely cannot help.
David Waimann is VP Energy at OurCrowd Investments and executive director at five water and renewable energy tech companies. drw@ourcrowd.com
This article is part of a series of more than 20 posts discussing climate policy and technology.
