Steven Mufson of the Washington Post has spoken to Jamshed J. Irani, director of Tata Motors in India — manufacturer of the highly publicized Nano minicar.
If the new vehicle is embraced by hundreds of millions in India, what will be the implications for greenhouse-gas emissions and climate change? “It might even reduce emissions. If I drive my Tata, my Mercedes will be parked. So from an environmental point of view, pollution will be reduced because the consumption of fuel will be much less in the Nano.” The vehicle is envisioned strictly as a city car. “No one envisions them zipping along highways. There is no baggage space.”
Regarding the upcoming Copenhagen climate summit: “We at Tata are aware, obviously. We will do the right thing. We will not wait for subsidies. If there is a viable technology, we will go for that.” At the same time: “We want a deal based on equity. No one in the world can say that developing countries, because they used less until now, must continue to use less and widen the gap between developed and developing countries. We will put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is necessary for development. You can’t take India, where one-third of its population still don’t have electricity in their homes, and say to those countries: ‘Don’t give more power because it would be putting more CO2 into the atmosphere.’ Development is very important, and populations demand that. You cannot condemn those populations to living literally in darkness.”
My view has been that climate change should be addressed — whether this takes the form of reducing emissions immediately, or concentrating on research and development for alternative energy sources. Nevertheless, it should be kept in mind that there may be a limit to what can be accomplished — it is a matter of limiting damage to the natural environment, rather than completely avoiding or reversing it. Furthermore, if politicians from the developed countries are not careful, the left-right ramifications of the matter in India and China may be just the opposite of those in the rich countries….