Contact: Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov
India Issues Report Challenging Global Warming Fears
India Vows Not To Reduce Emissions
The Washington Post reported on July 9 that India was “balking” at the U.S approach to addressing CO2 emissions. India joined four other nations to call for “much steeper reductions” for developed nations.
Fact: India issued its National Action Plan on Climate Change in June 2008 disputing man-made global warming fears and declared the country of one billion people had no intention of stopping its energy growth or cutting back its CO2 emissions.
An article in the Australian Herald on July 9 by Andrew Bolt, noted: “The plan's authors, the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change, said India would rather save its people from poverty than global warming, and would not cut growth to cut gases.”
The report declared: “No firm link between the documented [climate] changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established.”
The report made clear that India has no plans to cut back energy usage. “It is obvious that India needs to substantially increase its per capita energy consumption to provide a minimally acceptable level of wellbeing to its people. […] India is determined that its per capita greenhouse gas emissions will at no point exceed that of developed countries."
The Australian Herald article noted that this declaration “means India won't stop its per capita emissions (now at 1.02 tonnes) from growing until they match those of countries such as the US (now 20 tonnes).”
The Australian Herald article continued: “What makes the Indian report so interesting is that unlike our (Australia’s) Ross Garnaut, who just accepted the word of those scientists wailing we faced doom, the Indian experts went to the trouble to check what the climate was actually doing and why. Their conclusion? They couldn't actually find anything bad in India that was caused by man-made warming. In fact, they couldn't find much change in the climate at all. Yes, India's surface temperature over a century had inched up by 0.4 degrees, but there had been no change in trends for large-scale droughts, floods, or rain: ‘The observed monsoon rainfall at the all-India level does not show any significant trend . . .’ It even dismissed the panic Al Gore helped to whip up about melting Himalayan glaciers: ‘While recession of some glaciers has occurred in some Himalayan regions in recent years, the trend is not consistent across the entire mountain chain. It is, accordingly, too early to establish long-term trends, or their causation, in respect of which there are several hypotheses.’
In addition, in January 2008, Indian engineer and economist Rajendra Pachauri, who is the UN IPCC Chairman, announced that he was going “to look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century.” (LINK) [Note: Global temperatures have not risen since 1998, according to UN data. See: 'Global Warming Will Stop,' New Peer-Reviewed Study Says ]
Sampling of Indian Scientists Who Question Man-Made Global Warming Fears: ( See also: U.S. Senate Minority Report: “Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007” )
One of India's leading geologists, B.P. Radhakrishna, President of the Geological Society of India, expressed man-made global warming skepticism in 2007. "We appear to be overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new. It has happened in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles. We appear to be now only in the middle of an interglacial cycle showing a trend toward warming as warming and cooling are global and have occurred on such a scale when humans had not appeared on the planet,” Radhakrishna wrote in an August 23, 2007 essay. Radhakrishna said that there is doubt about “whether the steps that are proposed to be taken to reduce carbon emission will really bring down the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere and whether such attempts, even carried out on a global scale, will produce the desired effect. Warming of the climate, melting of glaciers, rise in sea levels and other marked changes in climate - these do not pose immediate threats and there is besides, no way of controlling such changes even if we want to. Exercises at mitigation of these likely disasters are, however, possible and mankind, in all likelihood, will gradually adjust itself to the changed conditions. This has happened before; men and animals have moved to greener pastures and adapted themselves to the changed situations," he added. (LINK)
VK Raina, India's leading Glaciologist, questioned the assertion that global warming was melting glaciers in India. "Claims of global warming causing glacial melt in the Himalayas are based on wrong assumptions," Raina told the Hindustan Times on February 11, 2007. The paper continued, "Raina told the Hindustan Times that out of 9,575 glaciers in India, till date, research has been conducted only on about 50. Nearly 200 years data has shown that nothing abnormal has occurred in any of these glaciers. It is simple. The issue of glacial retreat is being sensationalized by a few individuals, the septuagenarian Raina claimed. Throwing a gauntlet to the alarmist, he said the issue should be debated threadbare before drawing a conclusion." (LINK)
Related Links:
Cooling Underway: Global Temperature Continues to Drop in May – June 4, 2008
'Global Warming Will Stop,' New Peer-Reviewed Study Says – April 30, 2008
Global COOLING Currently Under Way – February 27, 2008
U.S Army Chief Scientist Says Sun, Not Man, Is Causing Climate Change – June 3, 2008
National Post: Global Cooling! 'Spotless Sun' prompts scientists to fear 'dramatic turn for the worse' – May 31, 2008
U.S. Senate Minority Report: “Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007”
# # #
