CO2 EMISSIONS

World Bank report backs Indias stand

New Delhi: India, for decades, has demanded at the UN climate negotiations that it must be given a greater carbon space in the atmosphere to allow its 600 million poor access to electricity. The industrialized nations have argued that if India grows and powers its poor, the already limited space left in the atmosphere to spew out GHG gases would lead to irreversible and dangerous climate change. The World Bank report , to be released in September, has now backed the Indian stance that the high-income countries have contributed a disproportionate share of the worlds carbon emissions and still continue to do so.
India and other developing countries have long contended that the massive emissions from the rich nations since the industrialization era have choked up the atmosphere and left little space for other nations emerging late on the economic growth pathway to increase their power production.
Earlier studies have shown that historical emissions amount to about 1,100 tonnes of CO2 per capita for the UK and the US, compared with 66 tonnes for China and 23 tonnes for India. Since 1840, seven out of every 10 tonnes of CO2 emitted has come from the rich countries.