I enjoy taking the bus to work. For a 40 minute commute it costs me Rs. 7 (US$ 0.18) instead of Rs. 50 if I choose to take an auto-rickshaw. But today as the bus sat still for 40 minutes in the middle of the traffic choked road, I looked longingly at the High Capicty Bus Corridor that is still under construction. It is a project that has taken a long time to get the green light for a city which is now adding 1000 cars a day to its streets. The availability of credit has made it easier for the burgeoning middle class of India to buy more goods and one of the things that is on the top of many peoples’ list is the car. At this point in time it looks as if India is all set to embrace the car culture. With more money going into roads, parking spaces, construction of more flyovers and underpasses to decongest traffic, and the imminent arrival of India’s version of the Model-T, a $2,500 car built by India’s Tata Motors.

COP 13, Bali, Indonesia, December 2007:

“It is strange that India has been labeled as a major emitter, when we are not, we are simply a large country with a big population,” stated Minister of State of Environment & Forests, Meena at the side event hosted by the Indian delegation during the Bali conference. Yes, it’s true: India is a country of approximately 1.03 billion people (and rising) and still nearly 500 million of its citizens are living in the darkness. Nearly 700 million of its citizens depend on non-conventional fuels like biomass (dung and wood) for their energy needs. When the primary concern of the government is to electrify the entire nation by 2012, we know that the energy will be coming from coal-fed thermal power plants. In fact, India plans on building 150 of such plants within the next 5 years with China not far ahead at 200. When an audience member innocently asked what India could do to reduce emissions, he was replied with, “I am shocked that you would ask such a question after what you have heard here during our presentation.” Being an Indian citizen and at the same time a resident of the world’s largest emitter, the United States, I was having a hard time reconciling the need for India to grow and reduce emissions when the country is already on a pathway of development that the industrialized nations have laid. (more…)