I agree that we all have to put in a commensurate effort starting now, not years from now. There is an energy nexus between the two countries in that Australia has abundant coking coal and uranium which India lacks. If we export coal it generates greenhouse pollution and if we export uranium it breaks sanctions for India's defiance of nuclear non-proliferation. I also suggest that India is in many ways the architect of its own misfortune with such a large population. Under current technology India could also achieve higher per-capita energy use with a smaller population.

‘If we expect India to take a stand on controlling climate change, the existing culprits, ourselves included, must be seen to be acting responsibly’

Of course we must. But our responsibility needs to extend far beyond climate change. It needs to encompass everything that will lead us as quickly as possible towards genuine sustainability. Not least population stabilisation.

“Instead of belligerently citing India as a motive for our own inaction, we can experiment, invent, share and guide. We have the breathing room and the economic reserve to lead, rather than follow.”

I don’t know if I’d call it ‘breathing room’…but yes, Australia is in a good position, compared to many countries, to set a shining example of a sustainable society.

Unfortunately it now seems as though it will have to wait until Rudd is booted out….as vastly reduced immigration is one of the major factors in achieving this.

The author says “Unlike Australia, where delayed economic growth may cause increased reliance on social security for some, and drops in discretionary spending for most; delayed economic growth in India will cause death. It’s as simple as that.” And “Indian children are dying now -.”

While from last year’s Annual World Wealth Report released by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini, “India saw its millionaire population surging in 2007 by 22.6 per cent -- which is higher than any other country in the world.”

India’s population in 1950 was 360 million; in 2007 1,132,000 million and increasing at 18 million per year. Yet India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change, released at the end of June, squarely blames the current situation on “high consumption lifestyles in developed countries”.

There is hypocrisy on both, on all, sides. India is living beyond its means for the size of its population, and has been living on its capital such as reserves of ground water. Australia does the same.

The author says “we can experiment, invent, share and guide” as indeed we should – lead rather than follow. For our own benefit at least, we should give an example of how population stabilization is not only necessary, but achievable; and how it is possible to live within the limits of our country’s environmental resources rather than upon depletion of them. We have a long way to go, and will never get there while the present antediluvian mindset prevails for population increase and economic growth in the form of increasing consumption.

Until we face up to that, we have a snowball’s chance in hell of being taken seriously regarding our bleatings on climate change action.

"we excrete almost 30 times more CO2 per person than India does"
The per capita measurement of CO2 (if even ackonwledged as a problem) is worthless. If CO2 is a problem then it doesn't matter a squirt who emits more per capita. India's population is their problem in regards to feeding themselves and CO2 emissions. India has not even tried addressing it's population problem in the way China has.

"The first paragraph of India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change, released at the end of June, squarely blames the current situation on “high consumption lifestyles in developed countries”."
A lifestyle India plans to emulate, if not quite to the same excess. Their sheer numbers will have a much greater effect on the planet and this is their burden. I know which one I'd rather have.

"But if we expect India to take a stand on controlling climate change, the existing culprits, ourselves included, must be seen to be acting responsibly."
One in all in otherwise a waste of time.

The author is right that we consume more than the Indians and Chinese per capita, however, it is a fact that without them cutting emissions, our effort is worthless.

Cutting our emissions first might give us the moral high ground, but leading by example has never convinced anyone to commit to sacrifice.

Putting something in place to get the low hanging fruit is a good thing, but garrotting our economy to make a point will only hurt us.

Take the first step, but don't go alone.

You are assuming that carbon is the major offender.New scientific evidence points to the contrary.If India overpopulates it's country,how is it our responsibility that we should suffer from India's excesses?

colinsett, excellent post.

Sant-Rayn

While I see India as Australia's ultimate strategic and economic ally after the US declines, I see your article as a tad tendentious.

You appear to frame the debate as a comparison between India and developed countries like Australia.

What you don't mention is a country of higher population than India that in many respects India is emulating.

That county is China. China has reached the state of industrialisation, scientific and military advancement that, my Indian friends tell me, India wants to pass in years to come.

Significantly "China has surpassed the US as the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/06/20/eachina120.xml

"Surging demand for energy in the world’s most populous nation has lead to a surge in construction of coal-fired power stations, pushing China’s production of CO2 to 6,200m tons of CO2 last year [2006] , compared with 5,800m tons from the US."

So your argument is out of date. Its not a developed country (the US) thats the biggest climate change problem its highly populated, developing China.

So as other people have said in this string, population is the critical problem.

One partial answer is uranium.

Our new Labor Government in its wisdom is honouring deals to sell Australian uranium to Russia and China (countries that have been hostile to Australia for most of their modern Leftwing existence). Naturally the leftwing of Rudd's Labor Party wishes to deny uranium to India but not to old comrades Russia and China.

The logic goes something like "its OK for the US, UK, Russia, China and France to have our uranium because they had nukes pre NPT ie pre 1968". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Non-Proliferation_Treaty

But India had nukes AFTER 1968 (ie. in 1974 - a whole 6 years after) so it simply cannot import our uranium - however much that reduces India's emissions.

Go figure.

Peter Coates
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/2008/07/australian-uranium-trade-with-india.html

The author maintains that we cannot question India's right to grow its economy whilst he takes no account of India's enormous and rapidly growing population. That will only guarantee environmental calamity for India and the rest of the planet.

I suggest the author earnestly acquaint himself with the evidence of the severely detrimental effects of overpopulation and start in earnest to do what he can to try to stabilise India's population. A good place to start would be Siddharth Deshpande's "India's population will harm the country and the planet" of 26 December 2007. Part 1 is at http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=128816 Part 2 is at http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=128898 and Part 3 is at http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=128967

Of course, India's population problem should not be used as an excuse for Australia not to drastically cut its CO2 emissions without further delay, just as Australia's past irresponsible behaviour should not be held up by India as an excuse to also continue to act irresponsibly.

If anyone would like to read an article by someone who has given more careful thought to the consequences of economic growth for India, I commend "Cheapest Car Tata's 'one lakh car' could be traffic and environment hazard" of 21 Dec 2007 by the abovementioned Siddharth Deshpande at http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=128716

"Unfortunately, our country has proven itself to be replete with myopic governments, planners, policy makers, and general intelligentsia. The traffic situation in most Indian cities is already in shambles, with long snarls (especially during rush hour) causing wastage of much time and fuel. Two and three wheeler drivers are generally seen to be a nuisance on the road, driving dangerously and with scant regard to courtesy and traffic rules. Most of them, when they get their hands on a bigger vehicle, can be expected to carry on in the same vein ... God forbid, but it looks like a good way to further bloat our road accident numbers. Add to that the severe shortage of parking spaces in our cities, and we have the perfect recipe for total urban chaos.

"Another serious downside no one seems to have thought of is that most of our cities have long been the front runners in the dubious list of the most polluted cities in Asia and the world. They are desperately in need of good, clean, reliable and scalable public transport. Unfortunately, our experts seem more preoccupied with toasting the success of motorcycle companies who have become the largest sellers in the world, rather than analysing the embarrassing truth behind this success story. India already figures high in the pecking order so far as contribution to pollution and global warming is concerned. ..."

"All in all, unless we manage to build many more roads and parking spaces than we currently have, unless we manage to educate drivers better before giving them a joke of a driving license and unless we take serious steps to combat fuel adulteration and the resultant pollution, the ‘one lakh car’ seems like a devil in disguise."

...

Whats the point ?
If India and China go charging ahead nothing we do will make the
slightest difference.

All they are trying to do is blame us before the event for any
negative events that happen to them. The whole thing is ridiculous.

In any case there is an argument that large increases in CO2 will have
no effect on global warming, it might still go up anyway.

http://brneurosci.org/co2.html

http://brneurosci.org/temperatures6.png

The developing world (incl China and India) is now emitting roughly as much as the entire world was in about 1990.

If the entire developed world brought their emissions to zero and the developed world continued, global warming would continue on happily, reaching the same end point by 2120 instead of 2100.

Carbon taxes should be added to any items imported from these countries to offset their obvious advantage in not complying.

The evidence that something is seriously wrong with our planet is overwhelming. Yet further unsettling evidence is to be found on the Four Corners documentary "Tipping Point" screened last night on 4 corners and to be repeated tonight at 11.30PM. The promotion for the documentary is "A voyage into the Arctic to witness the vanishing of the vast ice sea ... Can it be halted, or is it past tipping point?"

See http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/ http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/MessageList.aspx?b=21&t=54&te=True

I won't waste my time trying to argue how conclusive is the evidence that this has been caused by the digging up of nearly half of humankind's non-renewable bounty of fossil fuel in the last 200 years.

However, to have assumed that change to our biosphere on such a scale and in such a miniscule amount of time in geological terms would not have had gravely detrimental consequences was criminally reckless.

The onus of proof should never have been placed on those of us who feared the worst, rather the onus should have been placed on those seeking to profit from the digging up and burning of our fossil fuels at the current unprecedented rate to have proven that there activities would not be harmful.

It seems to me that those who are adding global-warming-denialist noise to these discussions, such as Arjay, want to lull the rest of us into complacency so that they can continue to profit from business-as-usual while the planet and our children's future goes to hell.

The other kind of noise added to these discussions are the various claims that it is all someone else's fault and that there is nothing that we can do to change this.

Whatever form the noise takes and regardless of whether it comes from self-appointed spokespersons for the oppressed of the Third World such as the author of this article or from inhabitants of industrialised nations, I urge those of you who want to preserve a future for our children to ignore them and get on with the job of both stabilising our populations and reducing our overall ecological footprint wherever you live.

Daggett;
I know that it is easy to knock those of us that have doubts
about AGW as distinct to GW. However it does seem to be a sport that
many pro GW people like to play even accusing some of corruption.

However, there is doubt in my mind and I am one of poor suckers who
will have to pay many dollars for it and if it all turns out to be a
phurphy will you pay me what it cost me ?

So I think I am entitled to better answers than I have been getting so far.

For instance;
http://brneurosci.org/co2.html

http://brneurosci.org/temperatures6.png

If in fact the logarithmic curve has indeed turned over then it won't
matter how much CO2 we put into the atmosphere.
Now I accept I have a bee in my bonnet about this but it seems
absolutely fundamental to the whole CO2 business.

Bazz,

All the people whose opinions I respect believe that the most likely cause of the changes in weather patterns is the massive changes caused by the increased demands of a massively expanded human population on this planet. One of those changes is, of course, the increased concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere, due to humankind stupidly having dug up, or extracted and burnt close to half of humankind's finite non-renewable endowment of fossil fuels in only two centuries.

If it turns out that, against the prevailing opinion of most climate scientists, that the worst predictions of global warming don't eventuate, I would be delighted to have been proven wrong.

However, as I wrote before, it would be reckless and irresponsible to continue with 'business as usual', let alone to accelerate extraction and burning of our fossil fuel reserves (http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24026408-3122,00.html http://www.risingtide.org.au http://candobetter.org/node/696 http://candobetter.org/node/671 http://candobetter.org/node/695 http://candobetter.org/NoMoreCoalExports http://candobetter.org/about#coal ) until we have much greater reassurance that it won't result in the destruction of conditions necessary to support advanced forms of life.

Also, warning is just one of a great many ways that our planetary life support system is being irreparably harmed. Everyone, who cares for the future mast do what can be done to ensure that both the overall numbers of consumers and the rate of consumption per consumer is not increased further.

Daggett,
Have no fear;

to ensure that both the overall numbers of consumers and the rate of
consumption per consumer is not increased further.

The rate of increase in oil consumption has ceased since 2005 to all
intents and purposes. Only very small changes up can occur and quite
soon the consumption will start its inevitable decline.

As far as coal is concerned it will be a few years yet, perhaps another
10 to 15 years and it will also start its natural depletion.

Whether it will be soon enough I don't know but then climate change
may be a slower process that you expect.

Bazz,

Please tell me if I am wrong.

It seems to me that you are trying to persuade those of us who are worried about our future and trying to do something about it to, instead, relax as you seem able to do.

So, if Queensland Premier Anna Bligh wants to triple our rate of coal exports by 2030, then that's OK by you is it?

Presumably, you are also quite happy to see our government export all of our gas and oil, and continue to burn vast quantities of coal in order to make aluminium?

If India decides to dig up all their coal and import as much more as they can from Australia and pollute their rivers, soil and air as the Chinese are now doing, so that its growing middle classes can emulate the wasteful consumption patterns of the First World, then that's also OK by you is it?

Whilst I don't expect to be able to shake you from your own complacency, some of us are not going to stick our heads in the sand as our astonishingly selfish elites (whether Indian or Australian) destroy our future to satiate their rapacious greed.

---

I have been quite well aware of the Peak Oil problem for some years now, thank you very much, and have also been quite well aware that, contrary to much official propaganda, coal is also a finite resource.

In spite of the fact that the amount of carbon that we can burn is not unlimited, it would be grossly irresponsible to assume that there is not more than enough in the ground to seriously compound the already serious harm done to our biosphere.

In any case, our fossil fuel reserves should be considered the property of all future generations and not just this one. Our own best interests, as well as those of future generations, would be best served by drastically reducing our consumption of petroleum, gas, and coal to levels that our biosphere can cope with so that one thousand years from now there is still some left over.

Bazz, daggett,

It's not that I disagree daggett - we should do something about CO2 as quickly as we can. Its just that I am rather skeptical we will. We let the Murray almost run dry - to the point of farmers burning their fruit farms before we got the stomach to do something about it.

And so it will be for CO2. In fact it will be worse, because we will turn to coal as a hydrocarbon replacement. Since deriving hydrocarbons doubles the CO2 released per litre hydrocarbon consumed, I will be stunned if our CO2 emissions don't grow quickly over the next decade. Surely Rudd must be aware of this? It will be interesting to see how he explains it given his pledge to reduce CO2 emissions.

Its a pity. Australia seems to have what it takes to become a world leader in alternate energy - the ability to organise infrastructure on a grand scale, the technical expertise, the raw materials like land and sunshine. But we won't because of our cheap coal. Things might be different if we could figure out how to export renewable energy.

The good news is the price of coal has been gradually going up as it becomes harder to obtain. This will force down the right road long before any politician can. This was Bazz's point, of course. I don't agree it is the correct course of action, but I do agree it is the course we will take - for better or worse.

rstuart,

It's clear that our Governments, supposedly acting in our best interests are, in fact, doing precisely the opposite. If the majority can be made to understand that, then we stand a chance of fixing things.

The task may appear extremely formidable, but I don't think we should throw in the towel just yet.

I don't see rising costs of oil and coal as necessarily a good thing. I think this is most likely going to lead to the poorest paying a disproportionately high cost for the crisis, whilst the elites who have caused the mess in the first place will be free to continue to consume profligately whilst the planet goes to hell. We need to end that situation and we need to find ways now to live comfortably whilst consuming no more than the quantities of natural resources that our grandparents and great grandparents did.

If they could do it, then so can we.