Modi Blames Huge Chennai Flooding On Climate While Flaunting Coal In Paris

The heaviest rainfall in over a century caused massive flooding across Tamil Nadu, driving thousands from their homes, shutting auto factories and paralysing the airport in capital Chennai. The national weather office predicted three more days of torrential downpours in the southern state of nearly 70 million people. "There will be no respite," Laxman Singh Rathore of the India Meteorological Department told reporters on Wednesday.

No deaths were reported in the latest floods, but since heavy rain set in on Nov. 12 there have been 150 deaths in Tamil Nadu. More than 200 people were critically injured over the past 24 hours in Chennai, a senior home ministry official said.

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Airlines suspended flights into Chennai's flooded international airport, causing wider disruption to air travel. Authorities later decided to close the airport until Dec. 6. "The biggest challenge is to find a way to clear the inundated airport and main roads," said Anurag Gupta at the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in New Delhi. Passengers stranded at the airport said they did not know when they would be able to fly, or where to stay if they could not. "All of us here are getting agitated because none of the hotels nearby are vacant. Where do we go?" traveller Vinit Jain told Reuters Television.

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Modi has ordered rescue teams and paramilitary forces to launch an extensive relief and rescue operation in Chennai. He had blamed climate change for the heavy rains that hit the southern state last month, tweeting before attending the U.N. climate summit in Paris this week: "We are feeling the impact of fast-paced climate change."

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/12/03/india-flood-tamil-nadu-chennai-idUSKBN0TL0CH20151203

India may be saying what is on a lot of minds at the COP21 climate summit: developing countries can't allow the worthy pursuit of reducing CO2 emissions become an obstacle to increasing overall standards of living.

As negotiators gathered near Paris to begin the complicated task of crafting a new deal to limit global warming, India did not waste any time in signaling the elephant in the room: not only will the subcontinent continue to rely on coal to ensure its energy needs, it will more than double production of the despised fossil fuel over the next several years.

Unlike China, which made a symbolic announcement in June, India has so far refused to nail down a date upon which its CO2 emissions will peak.

"We still need conventional energy," Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told world leaders at the opening ceremony of the key UN summit on Monday. "We should make it clean, not impose an end to its use. And, there should be no place for unilateral steps that become economic barriers for others."

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http://www.france24.com/en/20151202-india-searches-right-energy-mix-cop-21-paris-climate-talks

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/12/03/india-flood-tamil-nadu-chennai-idUSKBN0TL0CH20151203