[hueving]

India, "still a coal Goliath" is a better description. They burn a massive amount of coal compared to most countries.

They've just scaled slightly back on a massive coal consumption plan they implemented in the last few years. Nice, but hardly worth any recognition in the shadow of the damage they have already done.

[yumraj]

> in the shadow of the damage they have already done. Really?

See here: http://www.tsp-data-portal.org/Breakdown-of-Electricity-Gene...

U.S. generated, per 2014 data, 1612 TWh from Coal and 1272 TWh from Gas. China generated 3681 TWh from Coal and 91 TWh from Gas.

Compare this to India, which generated a mere 800 TWh from Coal and 89 TWh from Gas.

And this when India has more than 4 times the population of US and according to some estimates, unverified, more population than China.

[specializeded]

The article is comparing India to India, the commenter is comparing India to India, you're not.

A country having less output compared to more developed countries isn't surprising, nor the issue.

[maldeh]

By your statement I presume you are alluding to India sourcing ~70% of its energy consumption from coal (compared to ~40% by the US), according to this source. I should point out that the parent poster's dataset comes from 2014, whereas the article is talking about a much more recent transition towards renewables (the Paris accord was signed 2015 and India took part circa 2016).

The OP's point is still reasonable in terms of both absolute magnitude as well as per-capita, in that India, as a developing country and yet one of the most populous countries on the planet, consumes far less energy than developed states and is not as immediate a threat to life as we know it on a global basis, such as the US is. Indian policies towards coal consumption, no matter how progressive they can get, cannot hope to match the immediate impact their counterparts in the US can achieve today (and choose not to), and the current US administration does not really have grounds to point fingers elsewhere.

[rajathagasthya]

> They burn a massive amount of coal compared to most countries.

What part of this is comparing India to India?

[belorn]

Interesting site, especially when comparing neighboring countries. France and Germany, the Scandinavian countries, or Chile and Argentina. Chile for example has less than half the population of Argentina but burn 800% more coal in total during 2014. Germany has 30% more population than France but burn 1500% more coal. Denmark is half the population than Sweden but burn 500% more coal.

How valuable is knowing population size in order to predict coal usage?

[abhishivsaxena]

Please look at per capita emissions of India compared to other countries before making such statements.

Wonder how Indians do a damage to the enviornment, by having the lowest per capita emissions on planet.

FYI - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

[e9]

per capita is pretty good measure of efficiency but environmental impact is probably better measured by emissions per area of the country? am I wrong?

[matt4077]

> am I wrong?

Yes. Area doesn't consume energy, people do. Otherwise Russia would be the most eco-friendly country in the world, and something like Luxembourg should be considered an abject failure of environmental policy.

[e9]

I am just stating that more pollution per square foot will destroy that part of earth more and therefore damage environment more. So objectively speaking you are correct, social issues aside, Luxembourg should be considered an abject failure of environmental policy. But the issue of pollution is complicated and involves social issues so my perspective is not very helpful when you make policy decisions or include fairness towards people, etc.

[cygx]

I am just stating that more pollution per square foot will destroy that part of earth more and therefore damage environment more.

CO2 does not care about which piece of land it gets emitted from: As far as the main subject under discussion goes (in contrast to, say, air quality), pollution per square foot is an utterly meaningless metric.

[andygates]

Some pollution impacts are felt locally (heavy metals), some regionally (acid rain from upwind sulphur oxides), and some globally. CO2 is one of the global ones. It's very well-mixed in the atmosphere.

If we could point to a plume of obviously-warmed land downwind of a city, it'd be a much easier sell to the layman.

[rtx]

You are right we shouldn't be focusing on on per capita emission.

[manquer]

The problem with not doing per capita is that you valuing each person differently arbitrarily basis their nationality...

You can for example combine EU into one entity and say they pollute a lot. Or split china/india/US into 50 countries and say they don't contribute much individually.

In effect favouring being born lucky.. in any random sample of the world population you have 33% chance of being born in just 2 countries . Do these people get fair representatation in any international forum ? It is either 1 vote per country or powerfull ones have all of it.

Landmass also is not effective measure . You will end up with Australia, Canada and Russia driving the agenda

Pop density has more to do with ability to grow food and energy efficiency of food consumption - comparing pop density and talking about over population has to factor that in saying china and india are overcrowded is not a sensible argument(they are over populated but not to extent people think) .

We need fresh perspective on how we see the world , arbitrary national boundaries , Mercator projections and biased schooling makes our world view very distorted

All of the above applies to the US as well . State borders are arbitrary. People in Pop dense centers like california do not get even the 10th of the representatation as say Wyoming.

California could be 8th largest country in terms of economic output and has a pop larger most countries in the world yet people living there do not have a say proportional to their impact in domestic or international politic is that fair ?

[e9]

ok, seems like we are looking at this from different perspectives. You look at it from fairness to people and I look at it from fairness to earth. I argue that because pollution is so concentrated within the area, it destroys that part of earth more, this does not include anything to do with fairness towards people. But you are absolutely right if you look at it from perspective of being fair towards people. I am not at all against helping people though, I totally support destroying parts of the environment if it reduces overall suffering and progresses wellbeing of individuals in need. But my initial argument was that, social issues aside, looking specifically from environmental impact, per capita is not a good way to judge impact of the country.

[manquer]

I agree per capita/ per country is not the best way. Ultimately it comes to each individual don't you think ? . What does each every one of us directly or indirectly contribute . Any other grouping like country is always going to be arbitrary.. we need to each individually, in local, regional, national government, vote for the people who care and do the best we can irrespective what any one is doing or not. We need make them reduce too yes, but getting our shit together should be the priority

You are correct environment is not reason we should be worried . it is about the people, not the planet. 99% of the all species are already extinct one more large scale extinction event while terrible is not the end of life on this planet and the planet has seen far worse, life will survive long after we are gone. Sea level raise will adversely 60 % of the human population who live in the coast many of whom are poor. Changing weather patterns and climate change will affect the developing countries far more than first world countries who will have the resources to manage the effects . There are whole island countries that will disappear within the turn of the century. This is why developing countries are in very touch spot, they will need to balance both development of basic services and also find a meaningful solution to the problem.

[topspin]

Indeed. India has a coal glut on their hands. India was opening one new coal planet every month at the end of 2015. Around the same time India's Arvin Subramanian coined the term “carbon imperialism" during Paris accord negotiations because India didn't like the terms.

As expected, much more favorable terms were renegotiated to get India on board; India now gets to grow their CO2 emission as a function of GDP. A simple extrapolation of this shows they'll double their already huge CO2 output by the end of the decade, far surpassing the US.

Made the deal a lot easier to sign.

[vthallam]

India had to negotiate because it's emissions relative to emissions of the developed countries were minuscule. And then, you can't come say, let's make an agreement which shares equal responsibilities and burden.

Also, The Indian govt has a moral obligation to give it's citizens the basic amenities like power to the houses. They have been parallelly using coal and renewables to do it, now the cost of solar per unit is lesser than coal, so it's planning to cut down on coal.

[matt4077]

India consumes only 1/15 as much energy as the US (per capita). To insist that they should further reduce further is simply disingenuous: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?contex...

[throwawayjava]

> far surpassing the US

Why is this a problem? India has 4x the population...

[pkaye]

For one, health issues related to air quality have no basis on per capita pollution.

[fellellor]

But air quality degeneration does have a lot of basis on per capita pollution. The per capita argument was good enough to set the tone at Paris, for an agreement between all the nations on this planet. The argument against per capita pollution contribution is just willful ignorance.

Besides, none of you have even bothered to look at the figures. India's current coal consumption is less than 30% of the US, for a population 4-5 times larger. Even if we double our coal consumption, it wouldn't outstrip US at their current levels.

[pkaye]

> But air quality degeneration does have a lot of basis on per capita pollution.

Can you explain to me how this works?

[notyourwork]

Why is this not a problem? In the world of pollution and environmental health, using justification of because another country does it doesn't work.

[cscurmudgeon]

So is an Indian worth less than an American?

[notyourwork]

Neither is worth anything if we as a society kill the planet we call home so this isn't about race or worth. It is about us as a planet deciding to keep our planet healthy. Like I said, just because one country does it doesn't make it right for others. The others should be scolding the US not following in their naive ignorant foot steps.

[sumedh]

> The others should be scolding the US

How can other countries do that?

[woodandsteel]

>A simple extrapolation of this shows they'll double their already huge CO2 output by the end of the decade, far surpassing the US.

You have to look at the trends. India has radically changed directions in the last few years, and we can expect in the coming years it will change even more.

[llccbb]

The damage of bringing a billion people electricity?

[all_usernames]

A billion more people who can now participate in the system that's already polluted the planet to the brink.

[duncan_bayne]

Much better to keep them empoverished and undeveloped, right? /s

This sort of argument is exactly why I see environmentalism as anti-human at its heart.

[mikeash]

Most environmentalists want to bring a high standard of living to everybody in a sustainable way. Yes, there are some over on the "voluntary human extinction" end of the spectrum, but you shouldn't tar them all with that brush.

[duncan_bayne]

Certainly, that's true of most people who support green policies of various sorts.

But I'm not at all sure it's true of the majority of environmentalist organisations and parties.

I think there is as much of a disconnect between green voters and the desires of green politicians and lobbyists, as there is between the interests of Trump voters and Trump's interests.

It's fairly common to hear green orgs denouncing industrialisation, economic growth, free trade, etc. In New Zealand, the Green Party was in part founded by literal Communists, left adrift and unfunded after the fall of the USSR.

To summarise, I think that most people who think they are supporting what you said - a high standard of living in a sustainable manner - are actually supporting anti-capitalists.

[mikeash]

I guess it's just a question of how you label various groups? I wouldn't consider fringe Green Parties or similar organizations to be representative of environmentalism. If I should be using another term, I wouldn't object too much.

[e9]

I agree with you, but can you talk more about this? Is there an article or some other resource that talks more about this topic?

[duncan_bayne]

An illustrative starting point is the Golden Rice fiasco:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice