India's Carbon Future

Although the increase in oil prices has affected the U.S. economy, it is devastating India, which depends on imported oil for even more of its consumption.  And what oil India does import is used for high-priority purposes such as lighting homes, cooking food, and keeping trucks moving.

When I met yesterday with the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, the first words out of his mouth were about  the costs of oil subsidies. This week the biggest private gasoline retailer in India, Reliance Industries, shut down its gas pumps. The company found it could no longer compete with subsidized public oil outlets, which have kept their prices stable (even low by American standards) in spite of oil at more than $100 per barrel. But these subsidies are hitting the government's budget hard, and disrupting the market.

This morning's papers were full of news on climate change. The most spectacular was a study by a professor at Indian Institute of Technology Chennai, one of India's most prestigous universities, of the impact of 4 to 5 degrees of global warming on South Asia. Professor S. Chella Rajan predicted that 125 million residents of low lying areas in India and Bangladesh would be forced to migrate by flooding, salinization of soils, and shrinking fresh water supplies. The headlines vary, with the Hindustan Times proclaiming on the front page that "75 Million Bangladeshis may inundate India," but the message is pretty clear -- this country needs a low-carbon future for both climatic and economic  reasons.