India’s industrial decarbonization disconnect – Asia Times

India’s government has a pointed response to growing international momentum toward decarbonization of the global heavy industry sector: It’s not our problem.

That’s the uncompromising message that RK Singh, India’s Minister of Power, communicated to foreign government representatives at the International Energy Agency’s COP26 Net Zero Summit on March 31.

Singh touted India’s progress at improving energy efficiency and developing renewable energy sources, but derided other countries’ carbon net-zero goals as a “pie in the sky.” Singh declared that developing countries would continue to require and produce massive amounts of high carbon-emitting steel and concrete and put the onus for decarbonization on developed countries by “removing more carbon to the atmosphere than they are adding.”

Singh is no climate change denier. He acknowledged its existential threat as a “disaster of global proportions.” But arguing against India’s role in an essential global effort to reduce carbon emissions, particularly those of heavy industry, significantly raises the risk and severity of the climate “disaster” he foresees.

And his advocation of still-experimental carbon capture technologies as a climate crisis solution is either rhetorical or outright disingenuous. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that carbon reductions are essential to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050, and that failure to meet that target will greatly increase “climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security and economic growth.”