By Zachary Shahan •
January 14, 2010
India has been a bit of a wild card on climate change and clean tech issues. Like China (but not to the same extent), India made the Copenhagen climate negotiations more of a challenge, reluctant to commit to internationally binding targets and international transparency. One day they weren’t willing, then they might be, then they weren’t again. Then, they finally committed to cutting their carbon intensity 20-25% by 2020.
But without a stong, legally-binding, widely-accepted agreement, we are all left wondering what they (and others) will actually do.
Now, we are actually seeing India steam forward. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, following Copenhagen, said, “There is no escaping the truth that the nations of the world have to move to a low-greenhouse-gas-emissions and energy-efficient-development path.” He said that India “must not lag behind” in low-carbon technologies. Jairam Ramesh, Indian environment minister, followed this up by saying that India would go ahead with its carbon intensity reduction plans (above) even despite the lack of a strong agreement. “We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do,” he said.
And just this week, India announced it is launching its “National Solar Mission” which includes creating enough solar power that it could power about 20 million US houses.
It has more going on this month, too.
By Zachary Shahan •
October 27, 2009
In an effort to help a major developing country (the 4th largest country in the world) deal with climate change appropriately, the new Prime Minister of Japan reportedly agreed to give Indonesia a $400 million loan for this last weekend.
By Rhishja Larson •
August 10, 2009
Controversial proposals by the Australian government would mean shooting more than 650,000 camels from helicopters - and even making camel burgers.
Camels have become a problem in Australia’s remote Outback.
There are now about a million camels, and the population doubles every nine years. The animals were introduced to the Australia in the 1840’s by explorers who relied on them to journey through the desert. But now, camels are competing with livestock for food - and are apparently scaring people by destroying water pipes and bathrooms as they search for water.
Sky News has reported that the Australian government believes the population needs to be culled by two thirds - and they have a budget of $19 million AUD to take care of the situation.
That means the mass killing of more than 650,000 camels.
By Gavin Hudson •
October 16, 2008
This article is part of EcoWorldly’s week-long spotlight on Politicians You Can Believe In. To read more, subscribe to our RSS feed, or view our posts about politics.
(Kittens make everything cuter.)
Stephen Harper, Conservative Party leader and newly re-elected Prime Minister of Canada, isn’t many people’s ideal of an environmental hero. He once famously called the Kyoto accord “job-killing, economy-destroying,” and a “socialist scheme.” Understandably, many Canadians look disapprovingly on his environmental record.
However, for a society to achieve sustainability it must have the support conservative leaders as well as liberal leaders, especially when a conservative leader like Harper begins to take interest in the environment. Over the last several years, the Harper government has been making efforts to turn over a new, greener leaf. Despite his continued foot-dragging on Kyoto emissions targets, Harper has been at the head of some important achievements.
