India: Eco-warrior or Eco-worrier?

As one of the world’s BRIC economies, India’s fast-paced socio-economic development relies on exploiting its natural resources; producing many of the GHGs we’re trying to get rid of!

Following The Great Acceleration of 1950, India’s GHG emission has rocketed as human enterprise dominates the Earth system (Steffen et al., 2015). From 2005-2013 alone India’s carbon emissions have increased nearly two-fold from 1410MtCO₂ to 2407MtCO₂ - overtaking land-giant Russia and ranking 3^rd in the Global Carbon Atlas. Considering the country’s size versus its GHG belching contemporaries I feel this is a cause for concern…

CO₂ emission global ranking 2005

CO₂ emission global ranking 2013 

As a back-lash of GHG emission, long-term climate change threatens India’s ecological and socio-economic systems with less-frequent rainfall and longer periods of drought depleting water resources and affecting rain-fed agriculture, rising sea-levels flooding coastal areas and increasing malaria incidence alongside increasing temperatures. However it is encouraging to see the government’s determination to improve adaptive capacity and the mitigation of GHG emissions through efforts undertaken at home, introducing a range of domestic reforms to create a pathway to a sustainable future (Gupta, 2005):

• Ethanol blended petrol to reduce pollution and boost the sugar industry
• Joint Forestry Management, utilizing rural and tribal knowledge of forest species to increase carbon sequestration, conservation and reduce human intervention
• Population policies to stabilize its growing urban population
• Government-funded research into renewable energy to harness the potential power India’s abundant renewable resources have to offer

Ecotourism is another domestic effort which drives India’s economy and climate change mitigation – sounds like the best of both worlds right? Considered a growing niche, “green hotels” embrace environmental responsibility and are committed to utilizing ‘ecologically sound practices’ i.e. saving resources and reducing waste. However a study by Manaktola and Jauhari (2007) highlights how India’s efforts are challenged by the very consumers it endeavors to attract. Despite presenting a positive disposition towards green practices, consumers are less-willing to compromise their life-styles and quality of service or to pay premiums for environmentally-friendly hotels unless they personally benefit from practices. To me, this is a selfish obstruction of rich westerners which effects not only India’s sustainable progression but also the global effort.

Whilst it is encouraging to see what India is doing to mitigate its contribution to global climate change, only time will tell how effective its domestic efforts prove to be... But that’s another precious commodity the world is running out of in its efforts to reduce harmful emissions!