India Wants the World to Target Per Capita Emissions

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Dennis Ambler

This statement comes from the Indian Ministry of Power:

The Union Minister for Power and New & Renewable Energy Shri R. K. Singh has called for a change in the global climate change discourse and narrative, shifting from a focus on total emissions to per capita emissions of each country. “India’s per capita emissions are one third of global average, one of the lowest in the world; despite that, the developed countries until recently had been putting pressure on large countries like India, to reduce emissions. Their per capita emissions remained 3 – 4 times the global average. The narrative was on total emissions of each country.”

“Point of comparison should be Per Capita Emissions”

The Minister asserted that the narrative and discourse should not be about total emissions. “If we talk about total emissions, the country with minimum emissions could be an island nation with small population, even though they may be consuming huge amounts of energy and emitting huge quantities of carbon dioxide per person. Hence, the point of comparison has to be per capita emissions. This is the change in discourse which is needed, and I want institutions like TERI to talk about this.”

The Minister said this, during his Presidential Address at the Twenty-Second Darbari Seth Memorial Lecture, held in New Delhi today, August 25, 2023, in memory of Late Shri Darbari Seth, the founder of TERI.

Noting that developed countries would talk about phasing out of coal, but not about phasing out of natural gas or other fossil fuels, the Minister exhorted TERI to come out with studies on climate actions by various countries. Once the global South starts controlling the narrative, the world will be a much fairer place, said the Minister, adding that India has been insisting on phasing out of all fossil fuels.

Speaking about India’s actions towards reducing carbon emissions, the Union Minister said that India has achieved its NDC target of 40% of our installed electricity capacity coming from non-fossil energy sources nine years ahead of schedule, in 2021 itself. “Today, 43% of our capacity is from non-fossil fuel sources. No other country has added renewable energy capacity at a rate at which we have done. We pledged at COP-21 in 2015, that we will reduce our emissions intensity by 33% by 2030; we did this by 2022, eight years in advance. So, in Glasgow, we have said that by 2030, we will have 50% of our capacity coming from renewables and that we will reduce our emission intensity by 45%. We will achieve that too well before time.”

“The truth needs to be told, developing countries need space to grow”

Shri Singh said that the developed countries have reached their peak of development; so, their emissions will either remain static or come down. “However, the building stock of developing countries will multiply, since we are developing; we will need more cement, steel and aluminium to construct those buildings and plants. This will lead to more emissions. So, we need space to grow. This point needs to be made by think tanks like TERI, that this is the space which is required by developing countries to grow.”

The Minister said that the nation is not going to compromise on the availability of energy for our growth, adding that the country is responsible for only 4% of legacy carbon dioxide load in the environment, whereas our population is around 17% of world population.

The Minister said that this discourse needs to be changed not at only at the level of world leaders, but also among the people around the world in the developed countries. “The truth needs to be told, I want institutions like TERI to step up and change the discourse.”

https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1952260

If I was India, that is exactly what I would be arguing!

India’s emissions are seven times the UK’s. and have increased by 52% since 2011. Ours have declined by a third in that time.

But by focussing on per capita emissions, India would effectively be let off the hook for decades until the developed world had cut its emissions to India’s levels.

And as the Minister states, India has no intention of cutting emissions for a long time to come. Note his comment:

Shri Singh said that the developed countries have reached their peak of development; so, their emissions will either remain static or come down. “However, the building stock of developing countries will multiply, since we are developing; we will need more cement, steel and aluminium to construct those buildings and plants. This will lead to more emissions. So, we need space to grow. This point needs to be made by think tanks like TERI, that this is the space which is required by developing countries to grow.”

The Minister said that the nation is not going to compromise on the availability of energy for our growth, adding that the country is responsible for only 4% of legacy carbon dioxide load in the environment, whereas our population is around 17% of world population.

Finally let’s examine India’s renewable targets:

Speaking about India’s actions towards reducing carbon emissions, the Union Minister said that India has achieved its NDC target of 40% of our installed electricity capacity coming from non-fossil energy sources nine years ahead of schedule, in 2021 itself. “Today, 43% of our capacity is from non-fossil fuel sources. No other country has added renewable energy capacity at a rate at which we have done. We pledged at COP-21 in 2015, that we will reduce our emissions intensity by 33% by 2030; we did this by 2022, eight years in advance. So, in Glasgow, we have said that by 2030, we will have 50% of our capacity coming from renewables and that we will reduce our emission intensity by 45%. We will achieve that too well before time.”

40% of installed capacity coming from non-fossil fuels?

Needless to say, the actual generation figures are nothing like 40%. Fossil fuels accounted for 77% of India’s electricity last year, with a further 12% from nuclear and hydro, which are probably about maxed at now. Wind and solar contributed only 9%.

In terms of overall energy, the situation is even worse. Fossil fuels account for 88% of primary energy consumption, and wind and solar only 4%.

As non-OECD countries account for two thirds of the world’s emissions, we can forget about Net Zero in our lifetimes if India’s demands are met!

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Bill Toland
August 27, 2023 6:08 am

It would be only fair if Africa made the same declaration as India. Since Africa will have 2.5 billion people by 2050, the net zero targets set by western countries will be exposed as utterly irrelevant.

Reply to  Bill Toland
August 27, 2023 6:24 am

Agree, all developing nations (a lot of them in BRICS+) will continue fossil fuel use and indeed China/Russia funded nuclear for decades to come and they care not one jot about Western edicts or nut zero madness – in terms of energy security, reliability and affordability, I agree with them

Reply to  Bill Toland
August 27, 2023 7:51 am

Africa is a continent.

Bryan A
Reply to  Bill Toland
August 27, 2023 8:08 am

Any country (India China) that argues for Per Capita allowances only does so because Absolute Allowances would hit them hard due to their massive underenergized/unenergized (energy deficient) populace skewing their per capita figures. Per capita amounts should only be used for their energy proficient population.

August 27, 2023 6:16 am

It is amazing how many politicians do not know the difference between installed capacity and actual delivery.

Reply to  Streetcred
August 27, 2023 6:25 am

That’s because they are low on science & engineering education – they do however, know a good cash cow when they see one

Scissor
Reply to  Streetcred
August 27, 2023 6:25 am

Plus you can tell they’re lying if their lips are moving.

JamesB_684
Reply to  Streetcred
August 27, 2023 8:17 am

Perhaps they do understand the difference, but choose to take advantage of the innumerate masses for self enrichment.

It seems like most politicians are sociopathic, and couldn’t care less if their actions impoverish the hoi polloi.

Denis
August 27, 2023 6:20 am

If CO2 emissions were presented as a health issue, per capita controls would make sense. But it is not. It is presented as a global climate issue, falsely as best I can see based on actual data, but a global climate issue nonetheless.

Reply to  Denis
August 28, 2023 9:37 am

Does the atmosphere respond to total emissions, or per capita emissions? (I don’t know that it responds to either.)

Reply to  Denis
August 28, 2023 12:55 pm

If presented as a global climate issue, then the breakdown should be based on land area as governed control.

Greenland, Faroe Islands, a bunch of African countires … negligible world impact.

Denmark, India, Switzerland, St Kitts, Slovenia, Slovakia, Vietnam … biggest impacts.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Nevada, Montana, Alaska, South Dakota, Oregon, and North Mariana Islands, Maine, New Mexico … negligible USA impact.

Puerto Rico, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland … huge impacts.

District of Columbia (Washington DC) … gigantic impact.

Breakdown by counties would show blue counties are killing the climate.

August 27, 2023 6:24 am

Take the win. At least they aren’t talking about cumulative per capita emissions, from the beginning of the industrial revolution to present, as they have every right to do.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 6:28 am

You mean the stuff that gave you a privileged living standard?

Reply to  Energywise
August 27, 2023 6:44 am

Yes. and now it’s their turn..

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:35 am

There are no turns, bob.

Bryan A
Reply to  Pat from Kerbob
August 27, 2023 8:14 am

If total CO2 loading is an issue of concern then cumulative CO2 emissions (up to 1980) have already been sunk and no longer reside in the atmosphere.
If total CO2 loading is what matters then current total emissions matter most, like China’s 33% of ALL global emissions next year.
Energy deficient masses skew their per capita figures considering more than 600,000,000 Chinese have no access to reliable sources of FF energy and no electricity.

Reply to  Bryan A
August 28, 2023 4:49 pm

Wait until that 600M catch up to the rest – Global Boiling, no Global Pressure Cooker! Global Frying!

Well, maybe not.

Global Bulls!t for sure.

Bryan A
Reply to  PCman999
August 28, 2023 5:23 pm

Global Tepidity

Bryan A
Reply to  PCman999
August 28, 2023 5:23 pm

Or Global Stupidity

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:47 am

If, as you claim, CO2 is a problem, then every molecule added to the atmosphere makes the problem worse. The fact that you and others are arguing that poor countries should be allowed to emit CO2 freely, while only the developed countries of the west should be forced to reduce, proves that the true agenda was never CO2.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 5:47 pm

So big oily blob wants to give up all he has the privilege to have gained through the use of fossil fuels…

Is that correct. ???

Go and live in a mud hut ?

Purely subsistence living , with dubious water supply, no sewerage.

etc etc

Is that what big oily blob wants ?

Reply to  bnice2000
August 27, 2023 6:01 pm

Nope. No reason to. If it’s properly managed, through free markets that send the proper price signals – including the heretofore communized costs, now being disproportionately suffered by the worlds low income/net worth folks – there should be enough to go around.

AGAIN, I’m adult lifelong oilfield trash and understand how valuable these resources are. Too valuable to waste on the F450 you use as a Rascal scooter…

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:34 pm

There are no costs to more CO2 in the atmosphere it’s all benefit.

missoulamike
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:57 pm

Sure, Jan…

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:20 pm

Talking gibberish again, I see.

Only reason the worlds low income are suffering is because they are being denied solid reliable energy by scumbags like you represent.

Yes, you are certainly trash.. we can all agree on that.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:22 pm

through free markets”

Ah, so you are all for the removal of all wind, solar and EV subsidies and mandates.

Good to know.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 28, 2023 9:40 am

Not your call, bigoilbob. In that free market that you espouse, anyone can drive whatever they want. That is freedom.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 28, 2023 4:58 pm

“Too valuable to waste on the F450 you use as a Rascal scooter…”

Be careful, that’s just jealousy at its core, masked as eco-moral superiority.

You wag your finger at someone’s truck, then there’s somone wagging their finger at the size of your house, saying you SHOULD live in a microhouse, then someone else will be saying people shouldn’t have children, then pretty soon they’ll be lining elderly people up to the suicide booths.

Practically already there in Canada.

Reply to  PCman999
August 28, 2023 6:31 pm

No, but maybe a subconscious brag that, at 71, I either walk to and from the places I need to go, or ride my ebike with my bike bob trailer. And I also do an hour of cardio and another 2 hours of weight bearing, 6 of every 7 days.

After 50+ years, I’ve got a meet up with my high school swim team classmate, retired Lt. General (and CNN military contributor) Mark Hertling next month. Big embarrassment, as I have no hope of comparing my fitness to his. With his MS in exercise physiology (post West Point), and his fanatical commitment to personal fitness/health, he ran Army fitness. – in between commanding all European Army forces and all armored in Iraq. We’re both St. Louisians, but his BMI is undoubtedly lower. Oh, BTW, he is patriotically progressive….

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 28, 2023 9:50 pm

YAWN…. yet dementia and cognitive malfunction is still catching up to you. !

Reply to  bnice2000
August 28, 2023 9:38 am

Why does it have to be a zero-sum game?

Bill Toland
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 6:33 am

Your comment would only make sense if the residence time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was multiple centuries.

Reply to  Bill Toland
August 27, 2023 6:40 am

A copout. Not “multiple centuries, but the return to natural concentrations cna take almost as long as the time period I reference.

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-atmosphere-getting-a-handle-on-carbon-dioxide/#:~:text=Carbon%20dioxide%20is%20a%20different,timescale%20of%20many%20human%20lives.

“Carbon dioxide is a different animal, however. Once it’s added to the atmosphere, it hangs around, for a long time: between 300 to 1,000 years. Thus, as humans change the atmosphere by emitting carbon dioxide, those changes will endure on the timescale of many human lives.”

But least you acknowledge the damage it can do.

Bill Toland
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 6:45 am

On the contrary, carbon dioxide enrichment of the atmosphere has been hugely beneficial for mankind. India should be grateful for the increased crop yields to which carbon dioxide has been a major contributor.

Reply to  Bill Toland
August 27, 2023 6:55 am

I vaguely remember a 75 year old “Ag revolution” in there somewhere. Much of which was deployed to reduce the pestilence, fungilence, and to increase the drought and extreme weather resistance – all adverse conditions enhanced by man made climate forcing.

I know you fervently wish that all Ag was in climate controlled greenhouses, but that sparkly unicorn i exists only inside your eyelids.

Bill Toland
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 6:59 am

You are clearly a biology denier. Multiple studies have shown that increasing carbon dioxide causes an increase in crop yields.

Reply to  Bill Toland
August 27, 2023 7:26 am

Multiple studies have shown that increasing carbon dioxide causes an increase in crop yields.”

Kindly post even one that evaluates what is actually going on in the real world, and considers the many other Ag changes that have taken place, trans Ag revolution.

Bill Toland
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:43 am

You know very well that these studies all take place in controlled conditions so that the results are scientifically credible. Trying to claim that increasing carbon dioxide doesn’t increase crop yields is a ridiculous assertion and makes you look like a science denying half-wit. When you are in a hole, stop digging. You are embarrassing yourself.

Reply to  Bill Toland
August 27, 2023 8:02 am

And so, this is your whiny excuse for not providing your purported “multiple studies”, that include the effects of modern Ag practices. Typical….

Bill Toland
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:34 am

Keep digging that hole.

Reply to  Bill Toland
August 27, 2023 9:34 am

Keep deflecting from your indefensible claim.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:35 pm

They exist and have been known for years, it is YOU who amazingly remain ignorant because you never looked.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:44 am

There are many available sources on the net, just search them

Reply to  Energywise
August 27, 2023 9:33 am

Why should I have to justify someone else’s assertion? Per Chris Hitchens:

“That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”

Eamon Butler
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 5:21 pm

Because it’s not controversial. Literally hundreds of studies conclude a net benefit/ positive impact on crop yields and vegetation growth.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-study-rising-carbon-dioxide-levels-will-help-and-hurt-crops

https://academic.oup.com/hr/article/10/4/uhad026/7049409

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 28, 2023 9:46 am

Sort of like:

“Carbon dioxide is a different animal, however. Once it’s added to the atmosphere, it hangs around, for a long time: between 300 to 1,000 years. Thus, as humans change the atmosphere by emitting carbon dioxide, those changes will endure on the timescale of many human lives.”

It is an extraordinary assertion, which requires extraordinary proof. Since you brought it up, the onus is on you to provide at least one slink to the scientific evidence.

Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
August 28, 2023 9:47 am

Well, editing is still broken. “slink” should be “link”.

Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
August 28, 2023 10:46 am

Commenters of all ilk wonder why this was effectively disabled.

Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
August 28, 2023 10:46 am

Here’s a good one:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/7/2/024013/meta

And yes, it uses those Dr. Evil MODELS. Sorry that don’t have a Bizarro earth to experiment on. But since the deniersphere has no problem with modeling Ag success in the real world by adding CO2 to greenhouses with no pestilence, fungilence, extreme weather allowed, using best practices to model REAL CONDITIONS should pass muster.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 12:30 pm

WOW, you really are displaying your arrogant ignorance today oily blob !

MarkW
Reply to  Bill Toland
August 27, 2023 7:38 pm

Don’t bother with bug oil boob, he’s not interested in any facts, no matter how many time you present him with data, he will forget next time and demand it all over again. Like the rest of our trolls, he is just here to distract.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:43 am

There is plenty evidence that CO2 enhancement yields better plants & crops – even a basic grasp of related science, i.e. photosynthesis, shows that
Plants need 800-1300ppm for optimal growth, at around 420ppm now, we are CO2 deficient, unless of course global starvation is your thing

Reply to  Energywise
August 27, 2023 9:36 am

Totally neglecting the known, deleterious, effects of more warming.

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2008/03/pdf/cline.pdf

Dozens more where that comes from. Dozens more than any refutation brought to bear here, so far.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 12:37 pm

the known, deleterious, effects of more warming.”

Bull***t..

All based on anti-science models upon models by rabid activists who are basically clueless about real agriculture.

Those are built on top of climate models that don’t represent the real world.

It is all just ignorant pre-determined garbage.

This is NOT science, it is crystal ball gazing !

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:50 pm

Not that nonsense again? It really doesn’t take much to fool you.
You really think that lengthening the growing season by a couple of days is going to harm agriculture?
There is no evidence of an increase in rain or droughts, despite what the models have been tuned to show.
There is no increase in storms, or anything else.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 10:15 pm

Did you read the Cline article?

Setting aside it is an opinion piece based on Bill Cline’s opinion book, the article uses the IPCC scenario RCP8.5.

As you must be aware, the IPCC themselves clearly state that scenario RCP8.5 is highly unlikely.

Why are you spreading false information that even the IPCC doesn’t believe?

Reply to  Energywise
August 28, 2023 9:48 am

C3 or C4, or both?

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:55 am

https://co2coalition.org/facts/#main

Try this Bob, it may help your understanding of CO2

Reply to  Energywise
August 27, 2023 9:38 am

And AGAIN, no treatment of the adverse effects of this warming. FYI, there’s a REASON that the slang term “hot house flower” means what it means.

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2008/03/pdf/cline.pdf
Dozens more where that comes from. Dozens more than any refutation brought to bear here, so far.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 12:38 pm

fake models built on fake models.

If you were ever intelligent, that has all gone now. !

You are now just a gullible fool. !

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 3:35 pm

“..there’s a REASON that the slang term “hot house flower” means what it means.” There really isn’t, you know. The slang term came about because of a false, preconceived idea – a hothouse is used for robust, healthy plants that come from a much warmer climate than the one that the hothouse is situated in. If you took a healthy plant from outside a hothouse and put it inside it wouldn’t flourish either but that doesn’t imply that all plants are sheltered and vulnerable.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:38 pm

Ha ha ha , it is clear you have never worked in greenhouses where growers deliberately elevated CO2 levels to increase growth of their plant stocks.

You can’t be that ignorant…….

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:00 pm

And once again, even when shown the data he swears doesn’t exist, he refuses to even look.

There are no adverse consequences to CO2.

They are called hot house flowers because the owners use both the sun and artificial heaters to keep them warm. You didn’t actually believe that it was the CO2 that was keeping them warm, did you?

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:34 pm

Straight from NASA is this 7 year old report you amazingly never knew existed:

Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds
LINK

starzmom
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:25 am

Those climate controlled greenhouses usually have added CO2 and a lot of it.

Reply to  starzmom
August 27, 2023 7:30 am

True. But they are greenhouses, with controlled humidity, and no pests/fungi/extreme weather events allowed. Can you see the difference?

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:44 am

Why do you deny science Bob?
Yes, fertilizers, crop science, farming practices including fossil fuel tractors and of course genetic advancements all contributed, but only a fool or a troll would say that co2 effect is negligible.

NASA says the leaf index has increased 15%, the Sahel expanding as the Sahara shrinks. Pretty sure that is only co2, none of the other factors present there.

Since you are trolling, I can point out that your people, the climate/insane, are also attacking:

Fertilizer
Modern farming
Genetics

As well as co2. All the stuff you are blabbering about.

Can you admit your “team” is trying to kick out all the legs at once of the platform that got us to 8 billion people?

Can you speculate on the effect that will have on earths population if successful?

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:51 am

So you are claiming that CO2 only benefits plants when all other problems are taken care of?
You never studies biology, did you.

Reply to  MarkW
August 27, 2023 8:04 am

Yes, I am. Because if it were true, then it would have been shown to be true long ago.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 3:49 pm

It is true and it has been demonstrated as such for some time now. It was first used in the late 19th C but experiments really started after WW1, around 1920 and have are still ongoing, mostly refining the methods and practices for the last 50 years or so. Read up on the early Imperial College studies of the 1920’s and you’ll find that it has been held to be true by scientific experiment for over 100 years.

Reply to  Richard Page
August 27, 2023 3:57 pm

I don’t doubt that CO2 can increase plant growth under optimum, hot house conditions. Unfortunately, it’s mostly empty calories, with less other nutrients. But what science tells us is that this sugar high is more than offset by the fungilence, pestilence, and extreme weather conditions from the CO2 forcings.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:51 pm

From Oklahoma State University:

Greenhouse Carbon Dioxide Supplementation
LINK

An excerpt:

 Exposure of plants to lower levels of CO2 even for a short period can reduce rate of photosynthesis and plant growth. Generally, doubling ambient CO2 level (i.e. 700 to 800 parts per million) can make a significant and visible difference in plant yield. Plants with a C3 photosynthetic pathway (geranium, petunia, pansy, aster lily and most dicot species) have a 3-carbon compound as the first product in their photosynthetic pathway, thus are called C3 plants and are more responsive to higher CO2 concentration than plants having a C4 pathway (most of the grass species have a 4-carbon compound as the first product in their photosynthetic pathway, thus are called C4 plants). An increase in ambient CO2 to 800-1000 ppm can increase yield of C3 plants up to 40 to 100 percent and C4 plants by 10 to 25 percent while keeping other inputs at an optimum level.

You are an ignorant machine since this has been learned years ago that increased CO2 improved plant growth and quality.

This is 101 stuff that I learned in college 40 years ago!!!

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:03 pm

So, in what passes for your mind, CO2 may be able to benefit plants when everything else is perfect, but can’t at any other time.
Can you name any other nutrient that has this property, or are you simply that desperate to come up with another pathetic excuse.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 28, 2023 4:39 am

it’s mostly empty calories, with less other nutrients.”

Another LIE.. or just more ignorance from the big oily blob?

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:42 pm

It has been shown for several decades already.

Here is a website that has a nice list of published research papers on plant growth showing that CO2 additions does improve plant growth and drought resistance.

CO2 Science

LINK

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:01 pm

It was shown to be true a long time ago.

Bryan A
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 10:50 am

All the best science is done using controlled experiments which limit the factors affecting the outcome. This is the only way to determine the effect of any given forcing.
All the worst science is done in Models where the effects of the input can be moderated … which has the potential of producing the desired output without actually matching any empirical data.
AKA
The climate models always run hotter than physical measurements
Models are not data
Models are poor science

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:50 am

Are you actually clueless enough to deny that CO2 is good for plants?

Reply to  MarkW
August 27, 2023 8:05 am

AGAIN, under highly controlled hot house conditions admitted to here. FYI, most Ag does not get that hand holding…

Rud Istvan
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 9:48 am

NASA satellites show the Sahel greening from more CO2. It is hardly a highly controlled greenhouse. And the greening comes because most Sahel plants are C3, so with more CO2 need less water. The Sahel is the arid scrubland just below the Sahara desert.

Reply to  Rud Istvan
August 27, 2023 11:36 am

The geographer in me is insisting I mention “below” should be “south of.” I apologize for the nitpick 🙂

Bryan A
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 11:00 am

So how would you suggest measuring the effects of CO2 fertilization on crop plants?
In uncontrolled environments there are too many variables (as you mentioned a few … Pests, Fungi, weather (temperature, rain, drought)) to determine the effect of CO2 fertilization alone.
It Must be done in more controlled environments.
But if you want real world proof of CO2 biosphere fertilization
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-019-0001-x
And because you seem to like models…

Global vegetation models suggest that CO2 fertilization is the main driver of global vegetation greening.

And this from NASA
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146296/global-green-up-slows-warming

comment image

Reply to  Bryan A
August 27, 2023 11:09 am

Yes, if I were you, I would do a cointegration study. If you want to impugn it with the dreaded term “model” feel free. All the data is there. And I’m sure such studies have been done, but not offered here, due to their “inconvenience”.

But this is just a transparent attempt to avoid the issue. I.e., the denier version of explaining why you’re looi g for the car keys you dropped in the alley, under the street light.

old cocky
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 3:53 pm

Yes, if I were you, I would do a cointegration study.

Agronomists do these all the time. You may have heard of field trials.
Even better, they use trial plots in multiple areas to obtain results under different environmental conditions such as storms and frosts, and soil types.

Reply to  old cocky
August 27, 2023 7:54 pm

Again and again, he exposes his ignorance as you correctly stated that this is commonly being done on many agricultures-based colleges and for years.

Bryan A
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 4:35 pm

Nice comeback bigoilbob…did your mommy help you with that or did you think it up all by yourself???

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:34 pm

Why did you ignore Rud Istvan post in his reply to you.

LINK

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 28, 2023 4:43 am

Again showing your ignorance of the actual real science that has been done in biology and agriculture

All of that science shows that basically ALL crops benefit greatly from enhanced levels of CO2.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 12:40 pm

You really are showing your cult-based ignorance today, blob !

About 10 times worse than usual.

old cocky
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 3:37 pm

AGAIN, under highly controlled hot house conditions admitted to here. FYI, most Ag does not get that hand holding…

Plant growth is limited by the limiting factor(s)
Sometimes it’s just one factor (available nitrates, available phosphates, available soil moisture, soil pH), and sometimes it’s a combination.
Sometimes there can be too much of a good thing (flooding, high phosphate concentration causing reverse osmotic gradients, etc)

It has been quite well established that higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations reduce transpiration losses, so additional CO2 lowers the level at which soil moisture becomes a limiting factor.
That obviously has its greatest effect in low/variable rainfall environments. It improves cereal yields in Australia, for example, but would have little to no effect in Ireland.

old cocky
Reply to  old cocky
August 27, 2023 5:34 pm

-1

Another agronomy denier.

Reply to  old cocky
August 27, 2023 5:35 pm

And you’re STILL ignoring the deleterious effects of man made climate change.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8084208/

Several specific fungi are listed, and their increased coverage is referenced.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01426-1

“We found 3,213 empirical case examples in which climatic hazards were implicated in pathogenic diseases. All empirical case examples were related to 286 unique pathogenic diseases (Supplementary Table 1), of which 277 were aggravated (glossary in Text Box 1) by at least one climatic hazard (Fig. 3). Although 63 diseases were diminished (glossary in Text Box 1) by some climatic hazards, 54 of them were at times also aggravated by other climatic hazards; only nine pathogenic diseases were exclusively diminished by climatic hazards (Fig. 4a and Supplementary Table 1).”

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 5:37 pm

Two minutes of searching, but studiously avoided by the denierpshere…

old cocky
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 6:05 pm

It’s the net result which counts.

Plant breeders have been breeding for pathogen resistance for centuries.

The first link has 2 plant pathogens (rust and head blight). The summary claims stripe rust is a cold weather problem. Blight is mostly a problem in warm, humid conditions.
Rust and blight were some of the first fungal diseases of wheat which were minimised by selective breeding – look up William Farrer and “Federation” wheat.
Both are readily controlled by fungicides, but growing resistant varieties is preferred.

The second link refers to human pathogens.

old cocky
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 6:20 pm

And you’re STILL ignoring the deleterious effects of man made climate change.

It was a specific response to the effects of CO2 to plant growth in field conditions.

Wider effects of “climate change” on plants are a far broader discussion involving regional changes to temperature minima, maxima and ranges, growing seasons, cold days, seasonal rainfall, effective rainfall, rainfall variability, relative humidity, hours of sunlight, …
Then we can get onto livestock, non-domesticated animals, amphibians, corals, …

Reply to  old cocky
August 27, 2023 8:24 pm

CO2 also increases resilience to diseases.

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:15 pm

And once again, every change is being credited to CO2. Who cares if it has happened in the past, many, many times. This time it has to be because of CO2.

So you really believe that a few tenths of a degree is sufficient to change the distribution of pathogens?
You really are pathetic.

Reply to  MarkW
August 27, 2023 8:29 pm

He is that stupid because the “Pathogens” already exist ACROSS several climate zones at once all over the world.

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:06 pm

So the magic molecule, alone amongst all nutrients, only benefits plants when everything else is perfect.

I know that you don’t mind making a fool of yourself, but do you really have to work this hard at it.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 28, 2023 4:41 am

oily Ignorance yet again

Not always in greenhouse conditions.

Many trials have been done in open field situation by pumping in extra CO2.

The crops LUV it !

Bryan A
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 10:42 am

Your right…the advent of FF derived fertilizers (also to be verboten by Gang Green) certainly contributed to increasing mass per acre of food production, almost as much as Natural Atmospheric CO2 fertilization.

Would you have 6,000,000,000 people starve to death by denying the biosphere it’s required CO2 for greening and growth?

Borrowing a phrase from Star Trek 1 … we are all “Carbon Units”
We produce Carbon Emissions when we breathe
We require carbon to build and maintain our DNA
Plants require Carbon to energize themselves and grow
Animals require Carbon to grow and reproduce.
We aren’t adding any carbon to the biosphere that didn’t already exist

And, ultimately the Carbon Unit plant life thrives off the CO2 and produces Oxygen for us in return

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 12:28 pm

What a load of arrant garbage !

There is no evidence that CO2 is a man-made climate forcing.

You are talking scientific balderdash, as usual.

Reply to  Bill Toland
August 27, 2023 7:27 am

And as for your faux assertion about Co2 residence time?

The usual WUWT deflection….

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:52 am

Reality hasn’t been good to you.

Reply to  MarkW
August 27, 2023 8:06 am

Got a data based refutation of NASA? To get back to you, GET REAL.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:48 am

The same NASA earth sciences Dept that tweaks global temps by removing historical data to show enhanced warming today? We won’t be taking any factual lead from those guys

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/08/27/contaminating-good-data-with-bad/

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 12:42 pm

The usual WUWT deflection….”

What an ignorant blob-like comment !

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 6:49 am

My mistake. The residence time is indeed, “multiple centuries”.

Why the barriers to edits? Every frequent poster here has effed up, and had to repost. It’s a silly impediment.

James Snook
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:05 am

Bob,
I always mess up and the editing is simple

Reply to  James Snook
August 27, 2023 7:21 am

They have introduced a “You’re commenting too fat blocker, that either prevents or greatly shortens the window for editing.

Commenting here is a bad habit for me. The forum is a Q joke, with contributors who rigorously duck contact with the above ground world. And since bad habits breed others, I too often post quickly. My overlooks and Cliffie Clavins only then are noticed by me, and I try and clean them up.

A better solution would be to post in Word or some such, and then stew on it and reread. But then I would probably dope slap myself on the waste of time and rejoin reality.

James Snook
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:29 am

Yes, i have had the ‘posting too quickly’ thing too. Don’t know why on earth they do it, but you are right – I’ll do it in Notes first and count to ten before posting 🤡

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:54 am

It really is amazing how trolls like boob actually believe that they are supporting science.

Scissor
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:08 am

It could be better. You could change your handle to bigoilboob.

Reply to  James Snook
August 27, 2023 11:17 am

editing used to be simple. Now it seems to be impossible. Maybe someone knows a trick around that?

Reply to  AndyHce
August 27, 2023 3:10 pm

The editing bug appears to have been introduced by a software update recently.

One poster says the problem is happening across all WP websites, or at least the ones he visits, so it does not seem to be a WUWT problem exclusively.

So until they fix it, you need to proofread your posts real good because that’s the only chance you will get.

I’ve noticed another bug that has appeared a couple of times. I get a “429 too many connections” complaint and it won’t connect to the WUWT mainpage. When I retry immediately, it loads the page.

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:53 am

As usual, Bob can’t tell the difference between models that have been tuned to return the desired results, and actual science.

Reply to  MarkW
August 27, 2023 8:08 am

Where did I even mention models? Wayback to my original statement about cumulative per capita climactic forcing emissions and my NASA reference to real Co2 residence times.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 12:48 pm

The links you gave above were only models.

CO2 residence time is around 5-10 years… get over it.

You have to remember, the NASA climate section has been basically WRONG about everything, because they are a bunch of low IQ far-left cult-driven activists who are heavily into fake models and adulterated once-was-data…… NOT SCIENTISTS.

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:24 pm

I see you don’t actually bothering to read the posts you find.
How typical.

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:49 am

To bad the actual science shows that CO2 only hangs around for a decade or two.

Bryan A
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 12:01 pm

Sounds like Bad News for DRAX being net zero if you need Centuries to Millennia to resink CO2 released from burning wood for electricity generation. 100 years is 36,525 burn days worth of release before the first days burn is resunk. 1,000 years is 365,250 days of CO2 release before the first days burn is scrubbed

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 12:56 pm

You have to remember, the NASA climate section has been basically WRONG about everything, because they are a bunch of low IQ far-left cult-driven activists who are heavily into fake models and adulterated -data…… NOT SCIENTISTS.

You should look to real scientists instead…

Scrutinizing the carbon cycle and CO2 residence time in the atmosphere – ScienceDirect

Entropy | Free Full-Text | Residence Time vs. Adjustment Time of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere (mdpi.com)

Reply to  bnice2000
August 28, 2023 10:19 am

The molecules are fungible and exchangeable. The return to the old stabilized concentration, which takes centuries, is the point.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 28, 2023 9:58 pm

You are blethering arrant nonsense, yet again. ! That is the point !

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:33 pm

I”ve read the post, nothing but naked assertions. They just assert that despite the fact that every other molecule has a short duration, CO2 is different. Why? Because that’s what they need it to be.

The fact that if CO2 had the long hang time that boob so desperately wants it to have, then all of the CO2 that man has emitted over the last 70 years would still be in the atmosphere, and if all the CO2 was still in the atmosphere, CO2 levels would be well over 700ppm by now.

There were also studies done after the atmospheric a-bomb tests that showed that CO2 had a retention time in the atmosphere of less than two decades.

Scissor
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 8:03 am

About half of human attributed CO2 emissions are removed from the atmosphere by natural processes within a year.

Reply to  Scissor
August 27, 2023 8:23 pm

Simply because we emit so little of it yearly thus doesn’t take so long to remove it.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 12:27 pm

acknowledge the damage it can do.”

ROFLMAO..

CO2 enriches the planet.

Does no damage whatsoever. !

You really do keep exposing yourself as a rabid anti-CO2 cultist, don’t you oily blob !

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 5:58 pm

it hangs around, for a long time: between 300 to 1,000 years”

Total and complete BS !!!

Reply to  bnice2000
August 27, 2023 8:16 pm

You will find this interesting:

Carbon Dioxide: The Houdini of Gases

Excerpt:

By Alan Siddons and Joe D’Aleo September 05, 2007

How long does carbon dioxide linger in the air?

This is actually an important question, a question of so-called residence time. As previously discussed on this blog http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2_study.pdf, studies compiled by geologist Tom Segalstad rather convincingly show that earth’s biological and chemical processes recycle CO2 within a decade, meaning that a CO2 molecule you’re exhaling at the moment is bound to be captured by a plant or a rock or the ocean just a few years from now. Yet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other authorities insist that carbon dioxide generally remains in the air for up to 200 years.

Who to believe? We’ll present some evidence here and you be the judge. 

LINK

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 28, 2023 9:43 am

The quote fro NASA is an assertion. Is there any scientific proof to support that claim? If so, where is that evidence published?

MarkW
Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:44 am

Since plants and other biological processes are very efficient at removing CO2 from the air, cumulative is meaningless, as is the whole CO2 scam.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 27, 2023 7:55 am

Cumulative effect is nonsense as 50% of the CO2 emissions of thirty ago have already disappeared in the sinks. The non-OECD countries are faced with a catch-22 that they themselves will be the main emitters for the foreseeable future.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 28, 2023 12:11 am

The question for you is very simple. Do you believe total tonnage of emissions is driving a climate crisis?

If so, how much do you think the world needs to get emissions down to in (eg) 2040?

Within that, how much would you like to see China getting its emissions down to in 2040?

The usual answers are, Yes, 5-10 billion tons a year, and….. to change the subject.

Reply to  bigoilbob
August 28, 2023 4:41 pm

Why only back to the beginning of the industrial revolution? They’ve been burning stuff (and not replacing it) in urban settings since before history.

rxc6422
August 27, 2023 6:27 am

Most Western Progressives want the same thing. A return to a much simpler life for all of us. No more travel, only consumption of things you can make yourself from materials gathered in your local community. All fed by locally grown or foraged food.

A life that will be mean, brutish, and short

Reply to  rxc6422
August 27, 2023 6:29 am

Back to the future, except for globalist elites

JamesB_684
Reply to  rxc6422
August 27, 2023 8:25 am

The ‘ruling class’ Progressives only want that for the little people. They imagine that they will be able to enjoy an ever increasing standard of living that they feel they so richly deserve.

August 27, 2023 6:27 am

Having worked in India and seen first hand the very basic living standards of huge swathes of rural peoples, with no electricity, no clean water, no sanitation, I say to the Indians, go for it, get every cobble of coal and m3 of gas you can muster – there will be a mint to be made in years to come selling it to the west once they’ve done self harming

Disputin
Reply to  Energywise
August 27, 2023 6:44 am

Same with (West, specifically Nigeria, Africa). Their politicians may be corrupt as hell, but we’re not exactly pure as the driven snow.
Like Energywise. I say go for it!

AWG
August 27, 2023 6:30 am

Hence, the point of comparison has to be per capita emissions. This is the change in discourse which is needed, and I want institutions like TERI to talk about this.”

No the discussion shouldn’t be on per capita emissions, it shouldn’t even be about CO2 emissions. There is no reason on earth to talk about reducing CO2 particularly when it is a necessary component for plant growth.

We should be talking about how to cut the millions of those parasites on the dole who profit from trying to make all policy about cutting CO2 emissions.

It is fundamentally evil to apply a per-capita emissions standards on a heavy industry economy. Any talk on limiting CO2 emissions is talking about deindustrialization and lowering the standard of living.

I love the dissonance of those who seek a college education, allegedly so they won’t have to perform any manual labor for a living, seek a doctorate allegedly to underwrite a better life-style, and spend their entire careers calculating all kinds of policy mischief into making sure no one can enjoy a better life-style or improving standard of living – including themselves.

Reply to  AWG
August 27, 2023 6:35 am

Agree – the atmosphere needs 800-1300ppm for optimum plant growth – at around 420ppm, we are in serious deficit

Nik
August 27, 2023 6:36 am

Much more appropriate would be emissions per GDP.

Bruce Cobb
August 27, 2023 6:40 am

When you accept Warmunist Doctrine at face value, as India apparently has, then the absurdities and unfairness of it become clear. Their position, and that of pretty much all developing countries would be far more palatable if they instead rejected the Doctrine itself.

MarkW
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
August 27, 2023 8:07 am

It’s not obvious that India has accepted the CO2 lies. They could just be using the insanity of the West to their own advantage. As China has been doing.

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  MarkW
August 27, 2023 8:55 am

Even so, they are using a Lie to their own advantage, and that is both dishonest and disgraceful. Shame on them.

strativarius
August 27, 2023 6:43 am

India is pretty good at grifting – it just put a lander on the moon….

Petition
Stop sending foreign aid to India
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/641154

They can’t go to the toilet in the mare on the moon, not easily. But half of them they do in the fields

August 27, 2023 7:33 am

Talking in terms of installed capacity with renewables is a sign of grift.

Sparko
August 27, 2023 8:49 am

Per Capita times population sounds good to me.

Bhumisparsha
August 27, 2023 8:51 am

Of course comparisons between countries should be per capita. But even that doesn’t tell the whole story, since countries can import energy-intensive goods. Monaco, for instance, has very low emissions in total because of its size and absence of industry, but its inhabitants are massive users of the results of production.
But the whole thing’s bollocks anyway – a bit more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a good thing and isn’t contributing to non-existent global boiling.

Reply to  Bhumisparsha
August 27, 2023 1:37 pm

As you say, counting CO2 emissions is a total waste of time.

The whole aim should be to try to lift humanity, where-ever they are, to a decent standard of living.

Each country should be aiming at doing that.

USA is failing a lot of their own people, by the look of the number of people living on the streets in some large cities. That is where they should be aiming to do something, instead of wasting huge assets on building unreliable electricity supplies and stunting the growth of their whole country by their idiotic anti-CO2 agendas.

Germany and the UK are also heading down the same idiotic slippery slope…. maybe they have the same homeless situation the US has, and he just don’t hear about it ?

RatMan29
August 27, 2023 8:59 am

Of course India says that — if they weren’t so irresponsible, their population would be small and wealthy. The real blame belongs to individuals and groups that breed beyond their personal and national supplies of food, water, and shelter.

Reply to  RatMan29
August 27, 2023 1:38 pm

We all hope you have been a responsible person… and don’t have any off-spring !

MarkW
Reply to  RatMan29
August 27, 2023 8:59 pm

So you think too many people is a bad thing. Really?
Actually India’s problems is that they adopted socialism after freeing themselves from the British Empire.

Many countries have gotten rich while there populations were expanding.
Look at Europe, the US and Canada.

You really need to get rid of your anti-human biases. (And I’m being generous in assuming that it’s all humans that you are biased against.)

mleskovarsocalrrcom
August 27, 2023 9:44 am

With the AGW narrative losing steam because no country wants to commit energy suicide the attempts to either discount the narrative or make excuses for not meeting “goals” are increasing. It’s obvious no one, except the gullible West, is on board with AGW. Not to worry, the Marxists will come up with something else to push their agenda. Who knows, next they might be convincing people they have a gender choice that only Marxism can give them.

gcw
August 27, 2023 10:20 am

At this point everything seems to be predicated on Co2 being the primary cause of climate change.
The climate on this rock has been changing continuously for over 4.5 billion years. Co2, human generated or otherwise is not driving climate change. If a greenhouse gas is having any significant impact on climate, it would probably be water.   It is amazing that there is so much collective ignorance about the natural history of the earth and our solar system and basic natural sciences. This is not surprising since it appears there has been more emphasis on teaching political agenda driven ideologies,  rather than such things as science and the scientific method.  

Bob
August 27, 2023 11:24 am

India needs to worry about itself and we will worry about ourselves. It is time for people to keep their noses out of other people’s business.

Reply to  Bob
August 27, 2023 3:56 pm

Sticking your nose in other people’s business is the definition of international diplomacy – we’ve all been doing that for hundreds of years!

Bob
Reply to  Richard Page
August 27, 2023 4:21 pm

And how is that working out? Not good in my opinion.

MarkW
Reply to  Bob
August 27, 2023 9:01 pm

Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Pretty much the same thing any time humans are involved.

MarkW
Reply to  Richard Page
August 27, 2023 9:00 pm

Thousands of years.

August 27, 2023 11:34 am

It is true that there is a huge difference between installed “renewable” capacity and actual generation but the building of that capacity is a large and expensive waste of resources. That is a large drag on the progress they claim to wish to make. Insanity rules.

antigtiff
August 27, 2023 1:03 pm

First things first – where is the proof of CO2 causing warming? I have been fighting the climate war for over 20 years….and still have seen no proof. I recall calling a talk radio program over 20 years ago and pointing out that climate was cycling warmer for a few centuries and then cooler for a few centuries….and that Greenland was once green on its southern end and that the output of the sun is not a constant…..very little seems to have changed….reminds me of covid masks….no proof that masks are effective but everyone is forced to wear one…..and the mask thing dates back to the Spanish flu.

Gary Pearse
August 27, 2023 1:41 pm

India, you are widely admired for putting your people’s best interests first against the high pressure from the big EU/US/UN bloc to do otherwise. Please don’t water down your fiercely defended position by suggesting something to punish the hard working inventive people who got to the goal you seek to achieve. Maybe there is much more to be achieved in the future, no?

Reply to  Gary Pearse
August 27, 2023 3:23 pm

Yeah, let’s all benefit.

We can do that by deciding there is no reason to restrict CO2 production.

Then we can get on with our normal lives and poor nations can lift themselves up by their bootstraps just like Western nations did.

There has been a lot of progress made already in poor nations but the progress could be much more if the politicians were not focused on reducing CO2. It’s a distraction and an impediment to real economic progress.

Western leaders are delusional over CO2. Don’t listen to them. Go your own way. There’s no evidence CO2 is doing any harm to anybody. It’s a benign gas, make as much of it as you want.

Edward Katz
August 27, 2023 2:28 pm

Per capita emissions figures are just red-herrings used by big emitters to distract from the reality that it’s total emissions that count. Yet I can’t blame India which has worked hard to increase economic growth and alleviate poverty, and if I were a citizen of any country with such goals, I would expect no less. Nor would I expect the government to knuckle under to unelected international bodies like the UN that want to stifle economies supposedly to meet unattainable Net Zero targets.

August 27, 2023 2:54 pm

From the article: “40% of installed capacity coming from non-fossil fuels?

Needless to say, the actual generation figures are nothing like 40%. Fossil fuels accounted for 77% of India’s electricity last year, with a further 12% from nuclear and hydro, which are probably about maxed at now. Wind and solar contributed only 9%.”

So,The Union Minister for Power and New & Renewable Energy, Shri R. K. Singh lied about this little detail. Can’t trust anyone.

Eamon Butler
August 27, 2023 5:04 pm

Surely, the solution is that countries with small populations should encourage a population growth bomb. The more the merrier. Well, it works for India and China.

MarkW
Reply to  Eamon Butler
August 27, 2023 9:03 pm

I really wish I could figure out where the insanity that more people is always a bad thing came from.
There is no reason why a rapidly burgeoning population should prevent a country from getting wealthier.

Look at the US for a good example.

Countries that are poor, are poor because they have corruption and or socialism, the rate of population growth isn’t relevant.

Dave Andrews
Reply to  MarkW
August 28, 2023 7:15 am

Hans Rosling’s book Factfulness looks at how the world has progressed on many fronts since 1800.

In 1800 75% of the world’s population lived in poverty (less than $2 per day) by 2017 9% of a much larger population did so.

In 1997 42% of the populations of both India and China were living in extreme poverty. In India that share had dropped to 12% in 2017 – 270m fewer people were living in extreme poverty than 20 years earlier. In China the level had dropped to under 1%, meaning half a billion people had been taken out of extreme poverty.

Across the world average life expectancy had risen from 31 years in 1800 to 72 years in 2017.

A large part of this incredible progress was due to the use of fossil fuels for energy, pharmaceuticals etc etc

ferdberple
August 27, 2023 6:33 pm

How about lattitude? It takes way more energy per capita to stay alive at the poles than the equator.

August 27, 2023 8:33 pm

Mouseover map of per capita emissions based on World Energy Statistics data (formerly BP…)

https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/vlLHB/1/

Dave Andrews
Reply to  It doesnot add up
August 28, 2023 7:26 am

Also EDGAR – The Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research

https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/

August 28, 2023 12:07 am

Its an argument that one used to hear from climate activists. The agenda was reducing industrial activity in the West. Their argument started out by saying that tonnage of emissions was driving a climate crisis, therefore total tonnage had to be reduced.

This worked fine as long as the West was the main emitter. But then the activists were then faced with the inconvenient fact that China had become the worlds leading emitter of tonnage, by a long way, double the next largest, at 10-11 billion tons a year.

At that point they moved to per capita emissions, because the agenda was only ever to get the West and particularly the US to reduce emissions. It was not to get China to reduce. China had to be given a free ride.

This has been rather dented by the fact that China is now doing per capita emissions at about the level of the EU. So some other strategy has to be found why the West should reduce and China carry on increasing, and we now hear less and less about per capita emissions.

The problem with the per capita argument, now belatedly offered by India, is that it doesn’t work arithmetically. The activists usually claim that emissions have to fall from present levels of about 38 billion tons a year to something well under 10 billion, and by sometime like 2040-50. Or climate crisis, floods, fires and pestilence.

But by 2035 China alone will be emitting 15-20 billion tons. India, who knows, maybe 10 billion? And then there’s the rest of the developing countries. Get them all up to EU per capita levels and we will hit 50 billion tons a year, even if the West gets to Net Zero.

bigoilbob and others offering the per capita argument end up in effect arguing that China, India, Indonesia and the rest should feel free to do what in another context they have claimed to be destroying human civilization on earth.

There are number of conclusions from this.

The most important one is that the leading and fastest growing emitters simply don’t believe in the climate crisis story. If they did, no way would they be carrying on as now.

The others are to note the other contortions which the activists go through to justify their stance of ‘West reduce, everyone else increase’. One is to claim its all to export to the West. But not to propose West should bann said imports. Another is to claim China is installing lots of wind and solar. So somehow this makes it OK for China to mine and burn more coal than the rest of the world put together? Either tonnage is the driver or it isn’t.

A final one, hinted at by bigoilbob, is to say the important thing is historical emissions. This is of course logically nuts, the thing that is supposed to be driving climate catastrophe is future emissions and total ppm. Who did what in the past should be irrelevant. But the point of this and all these arguments is not the logic, and the point of the agenda is not the climate. Its to find some way of justifying the ‘West reduce, everyone else increase’ agenda.

Why they are so keen on that agenda? A long story, very interesting and important, but too long for now…

August 28, 2023 1:36 pm

No, it shouldn’t be about per capita emissions- since there shouldn’t be ANY discussion of carbon emissions at all!