Discussion Of Population Off-Limits During Climate Talks, Says Indian Environment Minister

Western nations are trying to use India's "profligate reproductive behaviour" to force Delhi to accept legally binding emission reduction targets, India's environment minister said today. Speaking at a conference in the Indian capital, organised by Delhi's Centre for Science and Environment, Jairam Ramesh said there was a "move in western countries to bring population into climate change . Influential American thinktanks are asking why should we reward profligate reproductive behaviour? Why should we reward India which is adding 14 million people every year?"

Ramesh's speech comes as the 100 day countdown begins to the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen, which will agree on a successor to the Kyoto agreement, due to expire in 2012. Developing nations such as India and China were not constrained by the Kyoto agreement, and western nations now argue that these rapidly growing economies should sign up to legally binding emission targets.

India's population of over 1 billion means that while it is the world's fifth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, its per capita emissions are just one-twentieth of the United States. However, its population is rising quickly and the United Nations predicts India will have 1.7 billion people by 2050 – while China will by then have a population of 1.4 billion.

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Ramesh said that at "today's state of development" India could not and should not accept "legally binding reduction targets". The minister added that the Indian government saw per capita emissions rising from one tonne of carbon dioxide to "three or four" by 2030. "For us this is about survival. We need to put electricity into people's homes and do it cleanly. You in the west need to live with only one car rather than three. For you it is about luxury. For us survival."

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/28/india-population-climate-change

Don't talk about my carbon foot print. BULL SHIT.

a lot of people who are homeless or barely in a "home" if you can call a shack that. Not everyone has electricity or running water. I know many many other nations have a far greater number of people in that kind of situation, but that doesn't mean it's right to pretend it doesn't happen here. (Although I agree that those of us who can afford to be consumers do need to cut back.)

That said, I don't understand how the issue of population doesn't factor into India's attempt at surviving. I guess screwing one's eyes shut to the concept of how providing resources to a rapidly growing population makes the job more difficult is the only way to get by?

Thank you for that pithy insight, Charles Eisenstein.

Self-interest rules the day, on both sides of the globe and on its top and bottom too.

in the last 10 minutes was twice the pop of my tiny town. just staggering

We're adding over 200,000 people a day to the Earth. By the time a pregnant woman gives birth, her baby will be only one of 55 million people added to the planet since she conceived.

to the Mormon's situation. They refuse to limit their own growth, despite the water crisis in the western deserts. However, they are soooo rich, they could buy a desalinization plant and drain the Great Salt Lake!

Or, they could just drink their Pepsi! (Which they own but discourage their folks from drinking)

Attempting to change people's faiths is always doomed to failure. Whether they are bible-thumpers or gaia worshippers or cow worshippers. They ALL have their own destructive agendas that aren't on the table.

Almost everyone I know, religious or not, conservative or liberal, insists that you simply can't tell other people what to do, reproductively (aside from the conservative stance on abortion, of course). Several threads on this site re: the Duggars and the Quiverful Movement illustrate the knots progressives tie themselves into: If you're "pro-choice", you have to support the right to populate your own country as well as not reproduce at all.

In other words, the rights of the individual should always trump the common good and future survival.

Isn't this the same argument used by anti-health care reform nutcases? Saw a commercial on TV here in NC a few days ago. A "doctor" solemnly warned that, if health insurance were given to everyone, then YOU (you know, lucky you who currently has insurance and can get in to see your primary care doc and get any treatments you want) might not be able to get in to see a doctor! Horrors!

In other words, you've got yours, so to hell with everyone else.

The "Individual rights" argument applies to so many issues:
-- Yes, I know we need to cut back on using oil, and I hate that we're dependent on the Mideast for oil, and that our soldiers are dying daily over there, BUT I really really like Nascar.

--Yes, I know that animals are tortured and brutalized on factory farms and in slaughterhouses, and that meat production causes horrific pollution, etc, etc, but I like bacon and I'm not giving it up.

--Yes, I know I really don't need a Hummer, and it guzzles gas, but I have to protect MY children on the road, and if I hit your subcompact and kill you, well, that's the way it goes.

Most people (note: I'm saying MOST, not ALL)--and not just in this country--aren't willing to sacrifice things they like and their standards of living for the long-term benefit of the planet. Read a thread on an Outer Banks website about the banning of stores using plastic bags on the Outer Banks--talk about an uproar ("This is stupid! How the @#$% am I going to carry my bait to the beach??")

The "I've got mine, to hell with you" mindset is deeply ingrained.

How do we overcome that? I wish to hell I knew . . .

The only way to change it is to change our cultural beliefs about growth, down at the grass roots. It's starting to happen, though, so I don't feel nearly as dismayed as I used to. Of course it's not happening fast enough to prevent major biophysical dislocations, but Mother Nature has no qualms at all about telling people what to do.