[Apneaman]

India could push world into climate change danger zone, warn scientists

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/n ... scientists

[Subjectivist]

India could push world into climate change danger zone, warn scientists

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/n ... scientists

It is hardly fair to blame India when North America and Europe have been dumping CO2 care free for 200 years.

[Timo]

India is, indeed, a massive economy, but i think there are a few inherent limitations to their emergence as a global leader in any individual, or even collective set of industries. For starters, India is a nation of hundreds of separate, and very independent cultures, and each culture functions almost (but not entirely) completely within itself. The caste system is a sad example of cultural traditions at work. Languages (several hundred of them) also complicate the inter-dependence of various cultures within India, as well. Hindi serves as a defacto default, but there are still millions of Indians who do not speak Hindi.

That was an overly abbreviated summation of the reasons why India won't become a major economic power. There are many, many more reasons, and they all stem from the cultural independence of Indians, as a whole. While there is a central government, and state governments, and even local governments, there really isn't any cohesive identification with any particular level of government anywhere. In fact, the lesser the level of government, the lesser effective, or involved, that government is with the people it is supposed to govern. Just as an example, there is zero municipal trash service anywhere in India. All homes dispose of sewage through open channels from their homes to the gutters in the streets. Once in the streets, refuse and sewage is consumed by cows and goats and pigs and dogs and monkeys.

All said, India's economy will only grow relative to its population, and the population of India is increasingly emigrating to other nations around the planet. It's Achilles heal to economic growth is its diversity, or rather, it's lack of cohesion.

This is not to suggest that there is not a tremendous opportunity for economic growth in India, but at present, the cards are stacked against them. There are too many distracting issues that people deal with on a daily basis that prevent them from collectively uniting as a nation toward a common, unified goal. Growth within any one industry will be coincident with its population, or external factors, such as industries moving in to employ the existing population.

[Timo]

I should add the caveat to my previous post that the current Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has pledged to provide 24-hour electricity to all of India's 1.3 billion citizens by the end of his term in 2019. It is estimated that approximately 400 million currently lack access to electricity in their homes. That pledge comes with a commitment to invest $250 billion in energy production. Of that, $100 billion is targeted toward renewable energies, mostly solar.

[Tanada]

I should add the caveat to my previous post that the current Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has pledged to provide 24-hour electricity to all of India's 1.3 billion citizens by the end of his term in 2019. It is estimated that approximately 400 million currently lack access to electricity in their homes. That pledge comes with a commitment to invest $250 billion in energy production. Of that, $100 billion is targeted toward renewable energies, mostly solar.

I would be interested in reading any link you have for those numbers, I suspect the other 150 Billion is to be spent on coal/natural gas power. The other day when the Syrians recaptured the big power station in Aleppo I was surprised to discover it is a set of once through natural gas burners, no Combined Cycle extension to increase the energy efficiency. I have a curiosity about electric power plants, even now with all the posturing several are being built in the USA.

[Quinny]

I have recently spent 10 weeks in the Middle East 2 in India, 6 in Vietnam and 2 in Thailand.

After 2 weeks in India, we were planning to travel back to France, but thankfully my friend who lives in Vietnam managed to persuade us to go there.

Until we went I wasn't aware that the GDP/capita of India and Vietnam are virtually identical. After visiting the 2 countries it seemed even more incredible.

Before continuing we met lots of lovely people in India and had a great time there and I hope none of them are upset by my comments.

When we arrived in Mumbai we weren't surprised to see poverty and slums, but we were more surprised when the slums seemed evident wherever we visited. The abject poverty was very upsetting and the health of some of the children seemed to be very poor. As a fisherman I was quite often up early in the morning, so probably witnessed some more disturbing sites. People including families and children sleeping on the streets was fairly commonplace.

The other issue was hygiene. India was in general filthy with little attention paid to local or more widespead environmental issues. The infrastructure both physical roads and sewers and telecoms was basic and caused lots of problems whilst I was there. Locals said things were improving, but no-one I met was optimistic as regards to timescales. Medical facilities were also very basic. Locals also didn't seem to have much confidence in their own circumstances getting much better in the near future.

The contrast when we arrived in Vietnam could not have been more marked. People seemed to work much harder but the standard of living seemed much better than in India. There didn't seem to be major disparities in income, though the locals assured me there is some corruption there.

The locals all seemed to live much richer lives than in India but more importantly in some ways seemed to be moving forward. The public Infrastructure both physical and IT based was superb much better than France or the UK.

Thailand was very similar, but it did seem as thought Thailand had followed the 'Tourist route' so strongly that their whole economy seemed to be skewed towards 'serving the tourists' as opposed to other important sectors.

I am sure that India will progress, but from personal experience Vietnam is streets ahead as a developing country.

[Quinny]

I was really surprised at the difference between the 2 countries. Nice thing about Vietnam as well is they use the Roman alphabet, so simple things like reading road signs makes sense.

India is more heavily Anglicised in general though. I'm comparing Vietnam with China as I've been learning a bit of Mandarin, but now thinking of Vietnamese. Dalat in the Southern hills was beautiful!

[Lore]

India is going back to the days of famine and deprivation. A huge population teetering on the brink.

[ralfy]

Lots of potential for BRICS and dozens of emerging markets. The catch is limits to growth.

[Lore]

Lots of potential for BRICS and dozens of emerging markets. The catch is limits to growth.

And that's a big catch!

[Quinny]

Brazil is struggling ATM. Lot's of problems

[Shaved Monkey]

Ive spent 5 weeks in India a few years back,I loved it,people were nice.
I stayed with a friend who has been going every year for 3 months for about 20 years.
The difference between rich and poor was staggering.
A local friend took me through the ghetto in Mumbai that was eye opening.
People crapping in the channel and a few feet down someone washing in it.
I dont know if the world can handle another billion people getting middle class, its struggling enough with the ones we already have

[radon1]

Chinese labor has become relatively expensive, and some businesses are migrating to India. So there is some good potential out there, but don't expect miracles.

[Timo]

I should add the caveat to my previous post that the current Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has pledged to provide 24-hour electricity to all of India's 1.3 billion citizens by the end of his term in 2019. It is estimated that approximately 400 million currently lack access to electricity in their homes. That pledge comes with a commitment to invest $250 billion in energy production. Of that, $100 billion is targeted toward renewable energies, mostly solar.

I would be interested in reading any link you have for those numbers, I suspect the other 150 Billion is to be spent on coal/natural gas power. The other day when the Syrians recaptured the big power station in Aleppo I was surprised to discover it is a set of once through natural gas burners, no Combined Cycle extension to increase the energy efficiency. I have a curiosity about electric power plants, even now with all the posturing several are being built in the USA.

Tanada, here you go. You may very well be right about the non-renewable investment. The article leaves out any mention of any of that. http://seekingalpha.com/article/3918876-india-next-solar-superpower

[Timo]

Thailand was very similar, but it did seem as thought Thailand had followed the 'Tourist route' so strongly that their whole economy seemed to be skewed towards 'serving the tourists' as opposed to other important sectors.

I am sure that India will progress, but from personal experience Vietnam is streets ahead as a developing country.

Bingo! Those two statements more accurately described what my post started out to convey. Thailand is very much a "tourist" based economy.

My wife just got back from a month in India (Kurnul), and we're both headed for Thailand this fall. What you said about the openness and friendliness of the Indian people was also spot-on. We were both speculating last night about the timing of India's present state. We all know about it's past under British control, but i'm completely ignorant about when its population exploded. As i alluded to earlier, India is a very vast nation with hundreds and hundreds of separate, small cultures and religions and languages, all artificially unified as one nation in fairly recent times. As small, separate cultures, there may not have been any need to develop municipal services and the public infrastructure to service each separate population. Now, however, there are 1.3 billion people, and the obligation to provide municipal services to everyone is, quite literally, overwhelming. As i said, i'm completely ignorant on India's history, so i can't speak with any authority on the timing of events that caused India to be the India we see today. All i do know is that most Indians are very religious (but even their devotion is relative in a matter of degrees), all Indians live in very traditional patriarchal families, and family traditions die very hard, if ever. Battling thousands of years of family and cultural traditions in the name of economic growth is unimaginable for India as a whole.

But, i admit that i am a newbie when it comes to knowing much of anything about India. I'm somewhat hesitant to talk about these things with the people i know who are from India. I know i shouldn't be, but i am. My loss.

[Timo]

This is complete BS. I HATE the TPP!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wto-tpp-environment-solar_us_56d09505e4b0871f60eb3e50?utm_hp_ref=business

Clinton passed NAFTA. Obama passed the TPP. BOTH are negatives for the world economy and our collective fight against AGW.

Sorry. Political emotions should stay out of this discussion, but the truth is exactly what it is.

[Tanada]

I should add the caveat to my previous post that the current Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has pledged to provide 24-hour electricity to all of India's 1.3 billion citizens by the end of his term in 2019. It is estimated that approximately 400 million currently lack access to electricity in their homes. That pledge comes with a commitment to invest $250 billion in energy production. Of that, $100 billion is targeted toward renewable energies, mostly solar.

I would be interested in reading any link you have for those numbers, I suspect the other 150 Billion is to be spent on coal/natural gas power. The other day when the Syrians recaptured the big power station in Aleppo I was surprised to discover it is a set of once through natural gas burners, no Combined Cycle extension to increase the energy efficiency. I have a curiosity about electric power plants, even now with all the posturing several are being built in the USA.

Tanada, here you go. You may very well be right about the non-renewable investment. The article leaves out any mention of any of that. http://seekingalpha.com/article/3918876-india-next-solar-superpower

Thanks, that made an interesting read. Sadly you were correct, they pump solar power and completely ignore everything else in the report, at least the portion I can access without registering for their website. The basic fact is, most of India's grid is powered by burning coal and they have an announced goal of increasing their internal coal mining by 2020 so they do not need to import any foreign coal to feed their grid. It just seems very unlikely to me that they would work so hard to increase their coal mining capacity for the purpose of ending coal imports alone. To me while planning a major grid expansion at the same time, without also planning to power a lot of that grid with internally produced coal as well.

Does that make any sense, or am I borrowing trouble?