President Obama Launches Secret Green Partnership With India to Cut CO2 Emissions Despite GOP Boycott
In a move sure to anger the Let’s-do-nothing-about-climate-change-till-China-and-India-do crowd, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India launched a secret Green Partnership to do something about climate change.
The secret arrangement was made while the President was on his failed Asian trip resulting in pre-Copenhagen announcements from China and India; of 40% cuts, and 20% cuts respectively, in carbon emissions. (His secret Red partnership with China is another story)
India and the US will launch partly publicly-funded joint R&D centers in both countries, to accelerate technologies in the renewable energy innovations needed to reduce carbon emissions in both greenhouse gas giants; India and the US.
All green tech will be covered: solar power, smart grid, second-generation biofuel, non-mined coal technologies, carbon capture and storage, waste energy, energy-efficient building, wave power, sustainable transportation, energy efficiency, wind energy, micro-hydro power and advanced battery technologies.
Two examples: The EPA will help India establish the first Environmental Protection Agency for India. Colorado’s National Renewable Energy Lab will do a full solar mapping of India to show investors there where India’s solar potential is greatest for large-scale utility-based solar developments.
Press release on page 2:
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December 2nd, 2009 at 1:42 pm
So, it sounds like, in fact it was not a failed trip. Careful with your language — don’t pass on miss information. See Fallows: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Press-Corps-Under-Fire-for-Distorting-Obamas-China-Trip-1692
December 2nd, 2009 at 2:49 pm
@David; You are right.
I was making fun of the general media response. In fact, there is not much more a President can do but get China and India on board.
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Susan,
Thanks for the response. I guess I was a bit quick to judge, but the sarcasm is your piece is perhaps not as strong as it could be — I shudder to think that this myth of Obama’s trip as a failure is being perpetuated. . .
dw
December 3rd, 2009 at 7:36 am
Hmmm… this does not change the fact that India wants to import more coal from Australia and Indonesia, or that Obama wants to build coal-to-gasoline plants and import Canadian tar sand oil to the U.S.
It’s true India has committed to building 20GW of solar by 2020 – but they are demanding international financing and intellectual property relaxations for technology. Furthermore, if they build solar but don’t cut back on fossil fuels, it does very little – and see this story:
“Coral reef scientist slams Brumby over ‘reckless vandalism’
MELISSA FYFE
November 9, 2009, Sydney Morning Herald
“One of the world’s leading coral reef scientists has slammed the Brumby Government’s proposal to export Victoria’s brown coal to India as “reckless vandalism”.”
As far as international financing? Consider what banks have done with the $700 billion bailout – it was used to drive up fossil fuel prices by buying up supertankers and betting on oil futures markets. This drove the oil price back up to $80, meaning that Canadian tar sands could go ahead. We can’t even get these taxpayer-fed banks to invest in renewables here in the U.S. – that would require large-scale feed-in tariff programs for renewable energy – so why would they invest in India?
India, unlike the U.S., is working on a solar feed-in tariff approach – so why isn’t Obama supporting this?
Obama’s support for tar sands and coal is evident – he granted a cross-border-pipeline permit to Enbridge, he pushed for the $18 billion subsidy for the Alaskan natural gas pipeline to the tar sands, and he was the lead promoter of coal-to-gasoline during his Senate days.
Quote from Grist, Feb 2009:
“In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) set to air tonight, Obama was asked specifically about the tar sands. While he acknowledged that tar-sands oil “creates a big carbon footprint,” he didn’t rule out the use. Instead, he compared it to the United States’ problem with coal, suggesting that new technologies to capture and sequester carbon emissions could solve the problem.”
Rapid growth of renewable energy would make coal gasoline and tar sand oil non-viable, leading to billions in losses for some U.S. corporate interests, and billions in gains for the new renewable energy economy – but with fossil fuel interests controlling Congress and the White House, good luck.
A complete rethinking of the energy and climate approach is needed in the U.S. – and it’s going to have to be the states that do it, in the face of opposition from the fossil fuel-linked federal government.
Finally, the “public-private” research efforts are a joke – crony relationships between private interests and the DOE that funnel all the patents to a handful of people. This is why no U.S. universities have renewable energy engineering departments – the federal government refuses to fund it. There is an unhealthy obsession with control of the technology here – open source it isn’t.
Glossing over these issues won’t make them go away, unfortunately. You have to consider the possiblity that Obama is just as pro-fossil fuel as Bush was, but with an emphasis on coal and tar sands instead of Middle Eastern oil.
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I do agree that congress is fossil-funded and that that has impeded progress in renewable energy till now.
$29 million in 2008 and over $20 million so far in 2009 to legislators.Second only to the Chamber of Commerce per the Center for Responsive Politics.
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2009&indexType=s
Coal too:
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E1210
But under this administration, funding for renewable energy departments at universities has actually never been higher, in wind and in EV development for example. The only fossil projects getting new DOE funding now demo how to reduce CO2 from fossil energy. CCS,CH&P etc.
Have you ever listened to Senate hearings on renewable legislation? The Republicans all say: “We can’t do anything about climate change because China and India won’t”. If I heard those fools every day for 2 years in the Senate, and then got elected president, I’d go make a deal with China and India, too.
January 16th, 2010 at 6:16 am
One thing that everyone seems to miss is the relationship between capital and energy production. What results is the same “power” structure that the fossil fuel people now enjoy and endure. Maybe after 20 years, a new system power generation will be paid off, but by then, it’s either worn out or obsolete, and needs to be replaced again, with the help of more “capital” from the “power”ful. Once people, like you or me, get use to, or spoiled to, the idea of collecting a check, not working for their way anymore, their lives are permanently broken, no doctor can fix. They become what once was called “Luminoids”. The answers are out there, but do you really want to know?
See what it looked like, in all it’s corny-ness, back in ‘64.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37VPRop3Gsc