Coals before goals: India’s dubious contribution to the COP21

A worker covers his face to protect it from rising dust at the under- construction coal-fired power plant in Kudgi, India. Pic: AP.

 Power plants in Fuyuan, China. Copyright: Mingjia Zhou

by Alistair Denness-11th December 2015

THE COP21 summit in Paris, so far, doesn’t seem to be quite as much of a disaster as previous iterations were. This time, CO2 targets were more or less agreed before the summit took place, and scepticism over anthropogenic climate change seems to be firmly consigned to the past. Or, at least, that was the prevailing attitude before the opening ceremony. India’s mid-summit snub regarding carbon emission reduction targets sent a dark signal that this nation seems to somehow believe that its economic health is more worthy of attention than the collective fortunes of the world’s future generations – including its own.

Coals Before Goals India’s Dubious Contribution to the COP21 by Thavam Ratna