Posted on 03/20/2008 12:02:58 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
New Delhi: If a power plant coming up in India for $500 million can embrace clean technology for an extra $50 million, developed countries must pay the difference, a top UN official has said.
United Nations Development Programme Administrator Kemal Dervis said developed and developing countries had different responsibilities, but would have to strive together to reach a goal of two tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per capita, which would mean a global warming of two degrees Celsius.
Scientists have warned any climate change beyond this level would potentially have disastrous consequences.
Delivering one of the Talking Tomorrow lectures organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) Wednesday evening, Dervis said that since developed countries were responsible for the stock of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that had led to climate change, "it can't really be fair to ask developing countries to take a leading role in solving the problem".
But the noted economist did want developing countries to play their part, and said since reducing carbon dioxide emissions "would provide a global public good, it should be financed internationally".
The UNDP's Human Development Report last year, on the subject of climate change, had been slammed by the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia because it suggested that developing countries take on the responsibility of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent while developed countries reduce theirs by 80 per cent between 1990 and 2050.
Ahluwalia had said such a move would hamper India's quest to provide electricity to 400 million people who still lived without it in this country. In its place, he had repeated Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's suggestion that per capita greenhouse gas emissions be equal throughout the world. Greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, are responsible for global warming.
Dervis said the route to equal per capita emission was 80 per cent reduction by developed countries and 20 per cent by developing countries, though in this way the per capita equilibrium would be reached 10 years later, in 2060.
This did not mean that developing countries should not increase their energy generation or move towards the same standard of living as in developed countries, Dervis hastened to add.
Only, the development path should be different, and the industrialised countries should pay the extra cost of treading the new path.
Obama will freely and wholeheartedly embrace this garbage. Hillary will be more reserved; no wholehearted support w/o first tendering the suitcase full of cash.
Yeah, Americans can give up their health insurance and send the premium payments to India.
Can I vote for John Bolton for president?
Ummm, screw this. And screw paying to clean up China or any other country’s mess.
No more f$$kin handouts. End it. They want to hate us, let’s stop funding hate of us. Doesn’t get us anything in the long run from these people anyway.
But aren’t we already hiring enough citizens of India in call centers to pay for this small expense?
I’d like to argue with this guy with a 1911 on my hip. This is just outrageous.
Vote for Underdog for President! It doesn’t bloody matter!
The U.N. can take a long walk off a short pier.
Kemal Dervis can have a bake sale amd raise the 50 million.
(Or take it out of the oil for food bribes....)
Another tax from our turd-world global government. This is the force that will ultimately destroy America and every last vestige of individual liberty on earth. Long-term, the paleolithic turd-eating savages are a minor nuisance in comparison.
Okay - we'll just take our portion out of the funding we give the UN.
Climate change blackmail. I can’t believe most Americans are so stupid as to buy this.
The UN has to get their kickback somehow.
BS. They can just defer building the plant until they raise the additional $50 million. The label "UN official" seems to be a synonym for "moron".
Give them the $60M.
Those countries that don't meet OUR standards for a clean environment - we add a 25% Green Tax (or tariff, if you wish to call it that) to any goods they want to import to the US.
Wait minute, isn’t this how the Enron debacle started? Clinton talked India into buying gas fired power plants from ENRON, the power changed hands in India, and they realized that India has no natural gas, but they have lots of coal. So, they refused to pay for the gas fired power plants. The last that we heard the plants were sitting unused.
Wait minute, isn’t this how the Enron debacle started? Clinton talked India into buying gas fired power plants from ENRON, the power changed hands in India, and they realized that India has no natural gas, but they have lots of coal. So, they refused to pay for the gas fired power plants. The last that we heard the plants were sitting unused.
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