On Nano, global warming, India and China

Srinivas Bharadwaj, writing in rediff recently, made some great points about the “trashing” of Nano by some in the western media (“Why some US scribes slammed Tata Nano“, Jan 14 ’08)

� Excerpts:

“…Tata Nano is the Model-T of India. It represents…a freedom no different from what Ford brought to the American consumer about a 100 years ago. And yet, it is already being challenged, not so much on price or on technology. It is considered a polluter, a source of global warming, in short, a threat to humanity.

Among its notable critics (is)…author and NYT columnist Thomas Friedman (who)…was quick to call the Nano, a ‘cheap copy of our worst habits.’..

Newsweek, in an article headlined ‘A Billion New Tailpipes’…quotes a Yale environmentalist, Daniel Esty, as saying: “This car promises to be an environmental disaster of substantial proportions.”

The reasons why American journalism is against the Tata Nano are obvious. The Nano was ‘not invented here (in the United States).’

…Esty, who was quick to praise the Prius (in Green to Gold) to the skies and promote aircraft manufacturer GE, oil-giant BP, does not use the same yardstick that the second law of thermodynamics does.

The Prius gives about the same mileage as the Nano and seats just as many. Yet, at over $25,000, the Prius is the rich man’s answer to the environment. I believe that for the rest, there is the Nano.

In the years to come, the Nano might come in a flex-fuel version, or might use ethanol or electric cells. . . but you have to give Tata time to gain marketshare AND innovate at the low price point. Which is why I must ask: “Why the double fuel-efficiency standards, Mr Esty?”

I came across another article last week which highlighted the progress India has made towards more sustainable development. Sadly, like the Nano, the good points rarely get talked about, while inaccurate statements are emphasised and highlighted. Below are some excerpts from “EYE ON THE TIGERS“,�by Ashutosh Sheshabalaya (JAn-Feb ’08). I recommend everyone�to read this in full.

“…one of the most sterile facets of the global warming debate is to refer to China and India, rather than to Chinese and Indians. China and India may be among the world�s biggest CO2 emitters…(but)…out of the world�s 235-plus countries, China and India�s populations outnumber the bottom 220 put together.� And their per-head/per-body contribution to global warming is vastly lower than that of the West.

…In the typical Indian�s case� – commercial energy use is, crucially, also far below the global average.� In 2005, world electricity consumption was 2,400 kilowatt hours (kWh) per person. India�s was just 432 kWh, four times less than China�s 1,662 kWh.� Oil use, too, exemplifies such trends.

An Indian�s consumption of crude, at 0.8 barrels per year, pales against the world�s 4.5 barrels, and is less than half China�s 1.8. There is little point throwing more dazzling, vulgar beams of light by juxtaposing such figures against the Western world, lit up end-to-end for the Christmas and New Year festivities.

Still, what is clear is that the difference between India and China is at least as significant as that between China and the world….

Firstly, differentiate between India and China. Both may be rising industrial powers, but China�s economic growth-at-any-cost is rather different from that of India, and this difference goes far beyond the numbers referred to above.
Although similarly determined to remove poverty, democratic India also boasts deeply ingrained soft systems which have begun priming its voters for the trade-offs between economic growth and their longer-term costs.

It was India – not China, or the West � which established the first Ministry for Renewable Energy. That was in the early 1990s. Since then, India�s Supreme Court – widely considered among the world�s most activist judiciaries – has set the country�s green agenda, from forcing metalworking and chemical plant closures to driving one of the world�s most ambitious environmental projects to date, namely the conversion of the New Delhi public transportation system to compressed natural gas. There are hundreds of other such examples.

The rest of the Indian system, too, has responded, at least as far as possible in what remains one of the world�s poorest countries.� Rural India now hosts 30 million high-efficiency �smokeless� stoves, with a conversion efficiency four times higher than their predecessors. Indian biomass gasifiers � a key renewable energy technology – are exported across the world, even to squeaky-clean Switzerland. More broadly, even modern, industrialising India has chipped in. The country�s energy intensity has fallen from 0.3 kgs of oil equivalent per dollar GDP in 1972 to 0.19 kgs in 2003 � equal to Germany.

Against this, the near-comprehensive lack of awareness about such efforts outside India remains striking. So too does the innate assumption that clean air and climate change are concerns of enlightened shock troops from the West battling recalcitrant polluters in ChIndia�s wastelands.

On November 23, without a by-your-leave, the New York Times announced that the US was �the world�s third largest wind (producing) country, after Germany and Spain.�

It also cited the Chief Executive of the European Wind Energy Association about a �second wave� of �new countries with significant wind capacity� � among them, �Britain, Canada, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands. � No numbers anywhere, nor a single mention of India. As it happens, figures from the Global Wind Energy Council show India in fourth position, with 7,093 MW of installed windpower capacity in July 2007, three times that of Britain, Canada, Italy or Japan, and double� that of China.

This is not to say that continuing industrialisation in India will not add to the world�s environmental woes. But pretending that India, and the 800 million Indians below the Davos line are doing nothing about it robs the debate of seriousness, and provides little incentive for meaningful cooperation with the West.”

Well said.

We need more and more people to become aware of these facts…Please pass on this article link to friends and acquaintances…

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