India is a developing country. Historically, we haven’t been an emitter of greenhouse gases but we’re currently one of the fastest growing economies of the world, which means that our rates of emission are escalating quickly and dramatically. We’re currently at fourth position in the list of world’s topmost emitters of greenhouse gases and predictions say that we might be bumped up to third position by 2015. Although we’re a developing nation, we’re also home to one-third of the world’s poor and all this combined makes us very vulnerable to the ominous effects of climate change. If things go awfully wrong as far as climate change is concerned, quite a large part of our population may not be able to buffer themselves against the impact.
The current government recognizes the need for change in order to control climate change but is also of the view that development is a crucial step in the process. However, despite the many hurdles, it seems that change is now around the corner with organizations and individuals raising awareness about the issue and suggesting green reforms and policy changes.
Our biggest advantage is the considerable reserves of natural resources at our disposal. We have in the recent past been consuming them at breakneck speed despite some of them being non-renewable. We need to now device or implement ways to use renewable sources, such as wind, sun, tidal power, biomass (organic materials such as wood, plants or animal droppings), geothermal power, etc to meet our energy needs and go green.
Fortunately, we are a tropical country with sunlight available to us in abundance so can we almost operate an entire building throughout the day without having to switch on an artificial light. This abundance of sunlight can also translate into solar energy. Being powered by solar energy is a vital part of green buildings. Although the green building movement is at a nascent stage in our country, it has already starting catching up with similar movements in developed nations. We’re at an advantage since we also have an architectural heritage with plenty of environment-friendly construction techniques and combining our old techniques with the new age ones is the ideal way to a sustainable future for us.
Along with this, we also need to strive towards re-establishing our diminishing green cover. A recent UN Food and Agriculture organization report says that the green cover of some South Asian countries including India has increased in the last decade. About 25% of our country’s land area is green and our target is 32% by the year 2012.
We also need to, like other high emitters such as United States and European Union, take other measures into consideration such as improving the fuel efficiency of our cars and energy efficiency of our buildings. We need to keep a check on other industrial emissions too, such as emissions from aviation and road transport. The need is to build a low-carbon energy system, which is sustainable most importantly, and put it into practise at the earliest possible.
