India’s resistance to accept a peak year for emissions was a prime reason why US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed to strike a climate deal along the lines of a US-China agreement on emission cuts. The US wanted India to make specific commitments including a peak year for a new climate treaty to be signed at Paris later this year. But India refused as it feared it would have resulted in the world putting India in the same bracket as China on carbon emissions. --Chetan Chauhan,
Hindustan Times, 27 January 2015
Syriza’s election victory in Greece has kindled hopes of an environmental champion pushing for greater climate ambition on the European stage, but the party will need to balance its green credentials with a commitment to new coal plants. “If we face fiscal difficulties from abroad in the medium term, then to burn more lignite instead of importing energy will seem a wise thing to do,” a Syriza source said. “If we don’t have money to import petrol then we will burn lignite which is free – not of a carbon footprint – but relatively cheaper. One way or another Greek lignite will be exploited.” --Arthur Nielsen,
The Guardian, 26 January 2015
Despite international pressure, India’s climate negotiators have been reluctant to commit to specific emissions targets in part because the country must depend on coal as its primary energy source for at least the next decade. U.S. officials had hoped to announce a deal on climate change that would be a modest complement to the historic agreement the United States reached with China in November. But little progress has been made because India and China are in very different places in their development, experts say. “The growth of coal is inevitable,” said Navroz K. Dubash, senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. --Annie Gowen,
The Washington Post, 24 January 2015
To spur the solar sector, and meet its 100 GW solar goal, India is looking for investments to the tune of a $100 billion within a period of 6–7 years — more than half of this is expected to come from abroad. This is where the United States is expected to play an important role. Explaining the US stance in a joint press conference with Modi yesterday, President Obama said, “We very much support India’s ambitious goal for solar energy, and stand ready to speed this expansion with additional financing.” --Anand Upadhyay,
CleanTechnica, 26 January 2015
Ministers have imposed a series of Labour demands on the UK’s fracking industry, in a last-minute move to avert a House of Commons defeat and pave the way for the development of shale oil and gas across Britain. A group of MPs failed on Monday to derail legislation to help fracking companies extract what experts believe are trillions of cubic feet of gas and billions of barrels of oil trapped beneath the UK. But, in a heated Commons debate, the government accepted an opposition amendment that will strengthen controls on the industry. --Christopher Adams and Jim Pickard, Financial Times, 27 January 2015
