shailendra
September 4th, 2009, 12:30 AM
Here's a little bit of tit-bit for even the most anal-retentive folks like me (er,....uh, I mean related to such issues that is!)... :rolleyes:
India accounts for nearly 'only' 3% of the man-made green house gases that are there now in the atmosphere, compared with 75% for the developed world (according to data compiled by the World Resources Institute).
So why - A country like India asks, should it have to go all out to cut their emissions of carbon dioxide?
Understandably this sort of stand comes from what is recognized (and resented) by most of the developing nations like India that it's the Developed Countries who should rather take responsibility for their historical cumulative emissions and current high per capita emissions to reduce the greenhouse gases and let the developing countries pursue it's goals of economic development!!!
In fact this last July, it seems one of our Indian official bluntly told the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that India (which is By the way, the world’s fifth-leading greenhouse-gas emitter) would not accept emissions cut as part of the global climate treaty! :o
Now standing on principle is laudable, not to mention great PR for the benifit of us domestic audiences who obviously resent being told by SUV (read Hummers)-driving Americans to cut CO2 emissions.
But unfortunately we have to also realize that this stance of 'staying with the blinders on' has a BIG downside; because a special place in climate hell is being reserved for countries like India (and even China). Countries like ours will suffer more from global warming than, for instance, Western Europe.
Why? Well India is in line to suffer disproportionately because of how the climate change is really affecting the different geographical regions.
For instance, now increasingly more of India-especially in the north-will broil (by which they say experiencing median temperature increases of 8 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit) than Western Europe will, and this comes according to 2007 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
And so as patterns of rainfall shift to more deluges as well as more droughts due to the when-it-rains-it-pours phenomenon that global warming causes, the country will suffer more floods.
Take also into critical account the actual needs by India to increase it's irrigation needs more than the world average of 1 to 3% by the2020’s – needs which are projected as high as up to 5% for India; and on the flipside- perhaps most ominous, the availability of fresh water shall decrease. (Which is as obvious something that you don’t want to happen when your irrigations needs are projected to rise!)
India gets much of its fresh water, for agriculture and drinking, from glaciers in the Tibetan plateau and in the Himalayas, which in turn feed the Ganges and the Indus rivers.
Now it is a researched fact that the Himalayas have been warming three times as fast as the world average, with the result that its glaciers are shrinking more rapidly than anywhere else and could disappear by 2035! :eek:
The Ganges and Indus rivers would become seasonal rather than year-round rivers then. Water availability for hundreds of millions of Indians is therefore projected to fall 20 to 40% in this century.
The wild card would be how climate change will affect the monsoons. :(
The Indian monsoon is born from temperature differences between land and sea. In summer the huge Asian landmass heats up more than the Indian Ocean, driving air masses from Ocean to land and bringing pounding winds and the rains that agriculture depends on.
Now unfortunately some climate models show that as global warming heats land more than sea, the Indian monsoon will become more intense. More powerful monsoons are already causing tragic collateral damage, killing 2,200 people in Indian in 2004 and regularly displacing tens of thousands more. (The Indian monsoon is already been striking too early than its historical late-June arrival, threatening to put it out of sync with crop cycles.
So, is this 'I didn't start it; therefore I should be the last one to be made accountable' really a fair/intelligent stand for a country like India to have? – Do you think that Principle, Fairness, and Righting the historical balance (or unbalance) really trumps droughts, deluges/floods, and starvation??? ... :confused:
India accounts for nearly 'only' 3% of the man-made green house gases that are there now in the atmosphere, compared with 75% for the developed world (according to data compiled by the World Resources Institute).
So why - A country like India asks, should it have to go all out to cut their emissions of carbon dioxide?
Understandably this sort of stand comes from what is recognized (and resented) by most of the developing nations like India that it's the Developed Countries who should rather take responsibility for their historical cumulative emissions and current high per capita emissions to reduce the greenhouse gases and let the developing countries pursue it's goals of economic development!!!
In fact this last July, it seems one of our Indian official bluntly told the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that India (which is By the way, the world’s fifth-leading greenhouse-gas emitter) would not accept emissions cut as part of the global climate treaty! :o
Now standing on principle is laudable, not to mention great PR for the benifit of us domestic audiences who obviously resent being told by SUV (read Hummers)-driving Americans to cut CO2 emissions.
But unfortunately we have to also realize that this stance of 'staying with the blinders on' has a BIG downside; because a special place in climate hell is being reserved for countries like India (and even China). Countries like ours will suffer more from global warming than, for instance, Western Europe.
Why? Well India is in line to suffer disproportionately because of how the climate change is really affecting the different geographical regions.
For instance, now increasingly more of India-especially in the north-will broil (by which they say experiencing median temperature increases of 8 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit) than Western Europe will, and this comes according to 2007 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
And so as patterns of rainfall shift to more deluges as well as more droughts due to the when-it-rains-it-pours phenomenon that global warming causes, the country will suffer more floods.
Take also into critical account the actual needs by India to increase it's irrigation needs more than the world average of 1 to 3% by the2020’s – needs which are projected as high as up to 5% for India; and on the flipside- perhaps most ominous, the availability of fresh water shall decrease. (Which is as obvious something that you don’t want to happen when your irrigations needs are projected to rise!)
India gets much of its fresh water, for agriculture and drinking, from glaciers in the Tibetan plateau and in the Himalayas, which in turn feed the Ganges and the Indus rivers.
Now it is a researched fact that the Himalayas have been warming three times as fast as the world average, with the result that its glaciers are shrinking more rapidly than anywhere else and could disappear by 2035! :eek:
The Ganges and Indus rivers would become seasonal rather than year-round rivers then. Water availability for hundreds of millions of Indians is therefore projected to fall 20 to 40% in this century.
The wild card would be how climate change will affect the monsoons. :(
The Indian monsoon is born from temperature differences between land and sea. In summer the huge Asian landmass heats up more than the Indian Ocean, driving air masses from Ocean to land and bringing pounding winds and the rains that agriculture depends on.
Now unfortunately some climate models show that as global warming heats land more than sea, the Indian monsoon will become more intense. More powerful monsoons are already causing tragic collateral damage, killing 2,200 people in Indian in 2004 and regularly displacing tens of thousands more. (The Indian monsoon is already been striking too early than its historical late-June arrival, threatening to put it out of sync with crop cycles.
So, is this 'I didn't start it; therefore I should be the last one to be made accountable' really a fair/intelligent stand for a country like India to have? – Do you think that Principle, Fairness, and Righting the historical balance (or unbalance) really trumps droughts, deluges/floods, and starvation??? ... :confused: